


On These More Familiar Roads

by darkly_ironic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fallen Castiel, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Road Trips, Season/Series 07 Spoilers, character death tag refers to pre-story death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2013-10-04
Packaged: 2017-12-28 08:06:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/989713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkly_ironic/pseuds/darkly_ironic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel isn’t the man—or the angel—he used to be. As learns to cope with the loss of the Winchesters and his own newfound humanity, his old life feels a world away. That is, until he finds Dean, who’s been brought back to life by unknown forces. With Sam missing, demons on their trail, and all the rules changed, just having each other may not be enough… AU from then end of Season 7.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On These More Familiar Roads

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2013 round of the Dean/Castiel Big Bang on LiveJournal.
> 
> Huge thanks to to mircabre, quiddative, and the mods of deancasbigbang!
> 
> Mircabre's beautiful artwork can be found here: http://mircabre.livejournal.com/1158.html
> 
> Warnings: Violence, pre-story major character death, torture, Winchester-style medical care

It’s four o’clock in the morning and Cas can’t sleep. 

He’d woken up gasping from half-remembered nightmares a little after midnight, but it isn’t the dreams keeping him awake. His back aches and his foot throbs where he’d dropped a box on it the day before. His throat scratches with every breath of chilly winter air and he’s been lying awake long enough that his stomach’s starting to grumble.  In all, it’s nothing like how Cas had imagined Falling.

Of course, when he'd contemplated the possibility, he'd always assumed that, whatever happened, Dean would be at his side.

Cas turns over, his legs twisting in the sheets. The too-bright red numbers of his alarm clock helpfully inform him that he's got three hours before he needs to start work. Damn.

He sighs and pushes the covers back, wincing as he lowers his feet onto the floor. It's November in Chicago, and it’s _cold_. His creaky space heater had finally broken for good a week ago, and he doesn't have the funds to buy a new one. He’ll have to make do with multiple sweaters and as many blankets as he can find until spring comes.

Cas wonders how Dean and Sam were able to survive their lifetime of frozen motel rooms. Right now, he's not sure if he would have been able to make it for long living like them. Still, he tries not to think about them for long. Some wounds are still too raw to pick at.

He gets dressed in the dark, the neon lights of the club across the street forming the room's only illumination. He likes it like this, when he can savor the last few quiet moments before the sun comes up and the day begins. He doesn't have to think about work, or what he's going to have for dinner, or, most of all, Dean. Cas is starting to understand exactly why repression is such a common coping mechanism.

Since he moved to Chicago, Cas has been working in a tiny corner store half a dozen blocks from his apartment. It’s still mostly dark when he gets there, and he locks the door behind him. The owner, April, had lectured him with something as close to anger as he's ever seen from her last time he'd left the doors unlocked until opening. He doesn't remember the specifics, but he's fairly sure it had something to do with the store being in a bad neighborhood (which, given some of the neighborhoods around them, Cas finds a little unfair), and Cas looking like he could be knocked down by a stiff breeze, much less the proverbial gang of drug addict adolescents (which Cas thinks is highly unlikely). Still, he keeps the door locked until eight o'clock now, and it's become one of the multitudes of little habits Cas would never have dreamed of adopting as an angel.

The next hour passes quickly. Cas restocks from the back room, starts coffee, and takes in the delivery from the bakery. The early morning rush, or what passes for it here, trickles through after he opens, and the good pastries, the ones that Cas knows Dean would have loved, disappear almost immediately. 

April shows up at noon to take over during Cas' lunch. She's about the same age as Cas appears to be, and she’s almost constantly in some state of mild panic. At first, he’d worried for her. Then he realized that was how she liked it.

"It was a nightmare getting the kids off this morning," she tells him as he unpacks his lunch. "Katie forgot her jacket, and then Sean spilt breakfast all over his shirt five minutes before we were going to leave. The twins are still sick—they were coughing and sneezing over everything." She shakes her head. "A total nightmare."

Cas nods. It was an early discovery that he doesn’t need to add much to a conversation for it to go smoothly, and that, in fact, it often works better if he doesn’t try to add too much to the exchange.

"Well, go on then!" April flaps her hands at him. "Go. Eat. Frolic. Do whatever it is you do when you're not working."

There's a little park around the corner from the store. It's not much, just a few trees, enough grass for maybe one and a half families to picnic, and several benches. There are also pigeons.

They cluster around Cas' feet when he sits down, burbling and cooing, iridescent neck feathers catching the sunlight. Not that long ago, Cas would have been able to understand what they were saying, would have been able to decipher the meaning in their sounds and body language. Now, it's just noise.

He eats his too-dry sandwich, swallowing it down with coffee from the store. He crumbles the crust for the birds and brushes off his shirt. The pigeons part away from him when he stands up, but they don't bother to go more than a few inches. They're used to him now.

As he's walking back to the store, something makes Cas pause, an odd shiver that has nothing to do with the cool air. He turns and looks back towards the park.

There's someone standing by his bench, ignored by the still-busy pigeons. He's tall and effortlessly handsome, his hands jammed into the pockets of his leather jacket. He's painfully familiar and it's enough to make Cas' chest tighten, the rush of blood too loud in his ears.

Then Cas blinks and he's gone, leaving nothing but a fading afterimage. Cas takes a shaky breath and lets it out slowly. This isn't the first time he thought he saw Dean. Apparently, hallucinations are one of the more extreme manifestations of human grief. Still, he'd have thought that over a year would be enough for the visions to fade; apparently, he's wrong. There's a part of him that would like to think that somehow this is really Dean, or even just some monster wearing his face, but Cas knows it isn’t. Maybe someday he'll even come to terms with that.

April's reading a gossip magazine at the counter when he gets back to the store. She looks up at the cheery ring of the bell Cas had helped her rig up over the door and double takes when she sees him.

"Jesus, what happened? You look like you've seen a ghost."

It's almost funny.

Cas ends up leaving work early. He doesn't really want to. There's nothing to do at his apartment and while he still feels a little shaky from seeing the apparition of Dean in the park, it's nothing he hasn't handled before. Still, April insists, shooing him out the door and telling him to come back when he's rested.

Going back to his apartment is unappetizing, so Cas doesn't. He catches a bus down the block from the store and rides the city lines for an hour. He's been in Chicago for over six months, but it doesn't feel like home yet. Its streets are still unfamiliar and strange, and he's unused to the press of humanity around him.

He rides the bus back to his neighborhood and goes home.

Inside, even with all the lights turned on, it's still dark. A few months back, April had given him a tiny TV she'd kept in the kitchen until she'd realized that moving four young children out of the house early in the morning was easier without the TV’s distractions. He'd considered selling it to buy a new heater, but it’s been educational, and he doubts it would go for enough anyway.

He flicks it on and settles onto his bed, pulling the blankets around him. Nothing’s on except a soap opera he doesn’t recognize, and he watches it for a while, trying to understand the characters’ dramatic but ultimately illogical actions. Eventually, the past few sleepless nights catch up with him, and he’s half asleep before he realizes it.

"Cas? Cas, can you hear me?"

The sound from the TV has changed. The new voice is charged with tension, but it's familiar enough that it's still soothing. Cas mumbles something noncommittal and burrows deeper into the blankets.

"Please, Cas, I need your help, man."

Cas sits up, the blankets falling off his shoulders. He gets a flash of the TV—Dean, his hands pressed up against the screen like he's trying to force his way out into the real world. His face is drawn and pale, freckles standing out sharply against his skin, eyes wide and pleading—then it's gone. The picture's back to the woman sobbing over the body of her dead lover, and the image is too close to Cas' admittedly fractured memories. He jumps up and switches the TV off with shaking hands.

He knows hallucinations. He'd spent several long months under the influence of Sam's back in the hospital. In the first few months after Sucrocorp, after he'd Fallen and lost the people grounding him to humanity, he'd seen the Winchesters everywhere. He'd grown familiar with seeing things that weren't there and, as much as his eyes tried to convince him what he was seeing was real, he knew the difference. He’s not crazy, not anymore, just troubled.

That hadn't been a hallucination. What it was, Cas isn't sure, maybe some fading echo of Dean used to try and get at him—he'd be an idiot if he pretended he didn’t still have enemies, and while Cas may be a lot of things, he's rarely an idiot— but it hadn't been the product of his own mind.

Part of him wants to up and leave that night, abandon his job and apartment and drive to Seattle to see if the two quiet mounds of earth he'd left in the shelter of a particularly peaceful patch of forest on the Olympic peninsula are undisturbed, but he knows he can't. There's no reason that anyone would bring the boys back. Their chapter is over. The only people who would profit from their return that Cas could think of are the few friends they'd left behind, and they are the ones who have no power over it. The longer he thinks about it, the more convinced he becomes that it couldn't have been Dean, or even some demon spell. It's not like Cas has ever been entirely mentally stable—he could have finally cracked and this is just the first manifestation of it. 

Finally, he gets up and makes himself a cup of tea. It goes undrunk, cooling slowly on the nightstand as Cas tries to think of anything but the Winchesters and fails.

* * *

Get up, drink coffee, watch the news, go to work, eat lunch, help April's oldest daughter with her history homework, go home, heat up a can of soup for dinner, watch TV, go to bed, wake up calling Dean's name, drenched in sweat from half-remembered nightmares and pretend it didn't happen, start the process over again.

It's not that Cas' life is boring. He's just not sure what to do with it. He has no friends outside of April, who he’s not sure really counts, and while he enjoys the company of her children, sometimes their presence is more painful than anything else. While Jimmy's been gone for years, there are still some traces of him left in Cas' body, and the irrational grief he feels whenever he sees Katie, who's eleven, blonde, and cheerful, has almost been enough several times to make him excuse himself from helping her with homework. He never actually does, though. It's not Katie's fault that she's a reminder of the daughter who was never actually his, and it's unlikely she could find another tutor with as complete a knowledge of Ancient Greece as him.

So he keeps going. It's how he's lived since he left the ruins of the Sucrocorp headquarters with a demon, a prophet, and the broken bodies of two men he'd loved in very different ways. It's how he's lived since he finally, truly, turned his back on Heaven and its power drained away from him like blood, taking his madness with it. He doesn't remember much of those days and he doesn't want to. Some things are better left in the darkness.

It's hard not to think about it, though, with Dean's face filling his dreams. It's been a week since he saw the hallucination—it had to be a hallucination—of Dean on his TV and, apart from the dreams, there haven’t been any further signs of him. That his brief possible break from reality seems to be over should be reassuring, but all he's left with is an overwhelming sense of unease. He still has Dean's voice, tight with panic and fear, ringing in his ears, and sometimes it feels like that sound is drowning out his own thoughts. It's the last thing he hears before he goes to sleep and the first thing he thinks of when he wakes up.

So, it's not a surprise when his dreams shift into something a little more focused than the usual variety of disjointed terror and pain.

He's sitting under a tall fir tree, the roughness of the bark digging into his back. The forest around him is sharper than he's used to, and the awareness that he's dreaming is new, too. He'd used to dream like this as an angel, when he could visit human’s dreams, but he hasn’t experienced anything like this since he Fell.

 Dean's sitting next to him, legs sprawled out on the duff, and the dream is real enough that Cas can smell him, leather and sweat, and another scent that Cas could never identify but was always _Dean_. He can feel him too, burning where he's pressed up against Cas, leaning against his side like he belongs there.

"I gotta say, you picked a nice spot." Dean's looking up at the canopy. "But dude, you really should have burned me and Sammy's bones."

"I couldn't do it," Cas says slowly. "Kevin didn't know, and I—I may have neglected to mention the standard rituals." He turns his head. Dean's close enough that every eyelash is visible and Cas can feel his breathing. "Perhaps it was selfish, but it seemed too final."

Dean huffs out a rough laugh that reverberates through Cas. "Yeah, I know the feeling." He hesitates and licks his lips, and Cas' eyes follow the movement before he catches what he's doing. "But the thing is, it looks like someone wasn't finished with us. You've got to stop them, Cas, you're the only one left who can. I know it's hard, but you can't let them go through with this."

Cas' mouth is dry and the tightness in his chest feels as real as it does when he's awake. "What's going on, Dean? You have to tell me." He reaches out and grabs Dean's shoulder. "Please, just tell me what you need."

"You have to stop them," Dean says again, and he doesn't sound quite like himself now. He's fading away, his body becoming insubstantial under Cas' hand. "Please, I'm begging you, Cas, you have to stop them."

Cas tries to hold onto him, but he's gone, slipping between his fingers like smoke. Cas scrambles to his feet, scraping his palm on the rough bark of the tree, but it's like Dean was never there.

He wakes up with a start, eyes wide and staring unseeingly at the patterns of light on the ceiling, his breath catching in his throat. He knows what he needs to do.

* * *

"Cas! What are you doing here?" April is already coming out from behind the counter. She reaches for him, then seems to check herself, her hands falling to her sides.

"I need to ask for a favor."

"Yeah, sure, Cas, what do you need?" She's starting to look genuinely concerned now, and while Cas knows it's unusual for him to go to the store on his days off, surely it's not that shocking.

"A—uh—family emergency has come up," he manages. "If I could have a week off, I would appreciate it." It feels stilted and awkward, and he's fairly sure it is. The not-quite lie is heavy in his mouth.

April's expression shifts from concern to confusion. "I thought you didn't have any family."

"Well," Cas backtracks, "they're more like very close friends. Very old friends. Of the family."

"Oh. Okay." April doesn't look any less skeptical. "Um, where are they?"

"Washington." It's not giving much away. If she were to tell anyone, there would be plenty of area to search.

"The state?"

Cas nods.

"Wow. Uh, do you have someway to get there?"

"I have a car," Cas tells her. "Please, April, if I don't do this, I don't know how I'll be able to live with myself. And if it turns out to be nothing, I'd like to know I have something to come back to." It spills out before he can stop himself. April's not really a friend, and she's nothing like family, but it's still the closest link to true humanity that he has.

"Yeah, of course. When—when are you leaving?"

"Today, if I can manage it." The managing it isn't a question. All he needs after he leaves here is a quick bus ride to a local storage facility, and he'll be on the road.

April bites at her lip. "I guess I can see if Marcus wants to work extra hours. You do realize that I'm only doing this because I know you wouldn't be here asking me if this wasn't something huge? When you get back, you _will_ owe me."

"Thank you." It doesn’t seem like enough, but there's not much else to say. He doesn't know if he will return, but knowing that April wants him back means more than Cas would have expected. Still, he doesn't look behind him as he walks towards the bus stop.

The storage unit had the double benefits of being cheap and close, but very few other redeeming factors. Cas knows it's not the kind of place that Dean would want his baby kept, but Cas hadn't wanted to risk leaving the car on the street. He doesn't think Dean would appreciate that either.

The Impala's engine rumbles to life on the first try, despite the long months on her own. Cas tried to make it out to the unit as often as he could, but there'd still been long stretches when he hadn't been able to visit. The car still smells like Dean—or maybe Dean had smelled like the car—and there's been times when all he'd wanted to do was sit in the passenger’s seat and imagine that Dean was next to him. Usually, he's been able to dismiss the urge as useless sentimentality. Usually.

It takes another half hour to get back to his apartment, make sure everything's turned off, and throw his bags into the back seat. It's a little strange to be leaving. Cas still isn't sure if he's going to be coming back, regardless of what he finds. He's only been in Chicago for six months, but it's the longest he's been in one place since he Fell. His apartment doesn't exactly feel like home, but it's something close. It's familiar, reassuring.

Once he's out of the city, Cas takes I-90 towards Wisconsin. According to the worn maps in the Impala's glove box, it should be a little over two day's drive to Washington, factoring in time to eat and sleep. He eats lunch in the car, wincing as crumbs patter against the leather seats. He carefully brushes them out next time he stops for gas.

He stops for the night in a sleepy looking motel right off I-94, but while he knows he's going to need rest if he's going to get far tomorrow, it's more difficult than he'd expected to settle in for the night. He dreams about Dean again, but it lacks vividness. It's more of an echo of his vision, but he still wakes up shaking with the force of the feeling that he needs to find Dean _now_.

He presses on the next day, barely seeing Montana and Idaho rush past the windows. The dryness of eastern Washington gradually gives way to green, and Cas spends that night in the car, parked at a way station with the rumble of semi-truck engines around him.

He bypasses Seattle, dipping down past Tacoma and following 101 towards the coast. It takes a little longer than he expected to find the patch of forest where he left Dean and Sam. He'd already been starting to Fall when he and Kevin buried them, and mostly he just remembers the pain. Eventually, he finds what he’s mostly sure is the right deer path leading off the trail. After a few minutes, the forest opens into a small clearing, and Cas freezes at the edge of the trees.

They'd buried the Winchesters next to each other at the foot of a tall Douglas Fir, and Cas still had the presence of mind to carve protective sigils into the trees around them. They should have been protected from restless spirits, demons, angels, and everything in between.

The sigils have been destroyed, the bark where they'd been etched shredded and rent by what looks like huge claws. The ground inside the circle is torn and ugly, like an open wound. In contrast to the chaotic destruction around them, the graves have been neatly excavated, like whoever—or whatever—had done it was being careful not to harm their contents.

Bile rises in Cas' throat, and he swallows hard. Until he'd seen what was left of Sam and Dean's resting place, he'd still thought that maybe his dreams and visions were just the product of a psychotic break and not of impending doom. Now, there's not really any other option. Anyone who would go to so much trouble to remove the warding sigils and take the Winchester's bodies couldn't want them for anything good.

Cas makes himself check the graves, fighting back another surge of nausea, and he's not surprised that there's nothing left. Whatever it was had been thorough. He doesn't stay for longer than it takes to make a quick search of the clearing. The place is contaminated now, and the feeling sticks to him as he walks to the car.

He drives back to Tacoma and checks into a motel; he needs privacy for what he's planning. He finds all the ingredients that he needs in the trunk of the Impala and lays them out on the kitchen table. He'd taken one of Dean’s old shirts for the spell. Hair would be better, but the only hairbrush he could find was Sam's, and while finding Sam isn't necessarily second to finding his brother, he hadn't been lying when he said that his and Dean's bond was closer, regardless of Cas' feelings for him. He's closer to Dean and, even now that he's human, he can still remember the way it felt to remake him, the raw power of his soul as Cas pulled him from Hell. He'll never forget that, and he never wants to.

Drawing the lines and symbols required for the spell is a little more difficult. He hasn't had to work a ritual like this for an age and his memories are already fading. Still, he figures it out eventually, or at least, it looks right. The words are easier, falling heavily from his lips. It's a simple spell, created by demons, used by humans, and old and bastardized enough that it promises no allegiance to Hell or its creatures. It should work for what Cas intends.

The sigils flare brightly and Cas grips the edge of the table as the power surges into him, burning as it dances across his skin. His vision blacks out as the spell takes hold, blurry images flashing through his mind—an abandoned apartment building near the docks, the Seattle skyline, Dean, still as death but whole, lying sprawled on a high table. Then the power's gone, the spell burning out and leaving Cas shaking and gasping for breath.

He doesn't even clean up the remains of the spell, just flips the 'do not disturb' sign around on the door and drives to Seattle. After he reaches the city, it takes an hour of weaving through the warehouses and docks to find the building the locating spell had shown him. It's tall, utilitarian, and completely unremarkable, certainly not the kind of place where any passerby would expect there to be ancient evil lurking. He parks out of sight of the windows and searches through the trunk. The demon-killing knife goes in his belt and an angel sword in his jacket. He takes Dean's pearl-handled Colt too, and its weight oddly comforting.

Cas ignores the front door and slips around into the alley on the side. There isn’t another door at ground level, but there is a fire escape, and a few yards away, a half-full dumpster. It’s easy to push it into place, and once he climbs onto the dumpster, it's simple enough to grab the ladder and pull himself up. He takes the first door into the building—it's locked, but the wood is partially rotted and gives in without much protest.

He tries not to gag at the first rush of air from inside. It's dank and musty, and it smells like something came in here to die. The stench of mold and putridity is strong enough he's half-blinded for a moment. It's not the smell of whatever human inhabitants might have stayed here in the years since the apartments officially closed, but rather of something much closer to Hell.

Cas takes a shallow breath and steps through the doorway. It's dark inside, and he takes a second to fumble for his flashlight. The door opens onto the end of a long hallway, its wallpaper faded and peeling, the carpet unpleasantly spongy under his feet. Cas knows that probably any building left unoccupied in the Pacific Northwest, especially one right on the water, would deteriorate quickly, but there's something about this place that doesn't feel natural. Despite his efforts to keep his breathing even, if shallow, Cas' heart is thudding painfully loud in his ears, every instinct screaming that he needs to leave before he finds whatever it is that's possessing the building.

But Dean's here. He can't turn back now.

He checks every door that he passes, even though he's fairly sure finding Dean isn't going to be that easy. Something that had gone to that kind of trouble to locate Dean's body wasn't going to leave him where anyone could stumble across him. There are corpses in a few of the rooms, perhaps squatters who had been here when whatever it was moved in, but they're not Dean, so Cas moves on. He’s made his way up the fifth floor before he finds anything alive.

Cas turns a corner, sees the two demons standing guard halfway down the hall, and flinches back, switching off his flashlight. The demons are standing guard at an open doorway, backlit by the room’s flickering orange glow. Their hosts are both taller and broader than Cas, and, even in the dim light, their eyes gleam black.

He takes a deep breath and shifts his grip on the demon knife. Its bone handle is slippery against his palm, and he switches it to his other hand for a second so he can wipe his too-sweaty palm off on his jeans. It's a simple, human reaction, but it still irks him. He can't afford to mess this up.

Cas can still move quicker and with more accuracy than a human. His theory is that it has something to do with being able to orient himself in flight, being able to bank and aim for a tiny spot, like the seat of the Impala, while moving at speeds faster than the human mind could comprehend. Now his wings are gone, but the sense memory remains.

He's in the hallway before his brain has completely caught up with his body's decision to act. The demons see him immediately, turning towards him with matching toothy grins.

Cas reaches the first demon and stabs upward. The demon takes a second too long to react. They probably thought that, with the Winchesters out of the world and the angels back in Heaven, there was nothing that could stop them. Cas can prove them wrong.

The knife finds the demon's heart on the first blow, hell-fire burning through the demon's skin and the impact reverberating sickeningly through Cas' arm and up to his shoulder. The second demon had frozen when Cas stabbed his friend and backed up slightly to avoid the falling body. Now that Cas' attention is focused on him, he raises his hands in a mocking surrender.

"So you're the little angel who lost his wings," he says. "Wow, please, don't hurt me with your scary angel powers." The demon smiles. "Oh wait, I forgot. You don't have any."

Cas lunges, but this time the demon is ready. He sidesteps away, and when Cas tries to stop his momentum and turn the blow, he grabs Cas' arm, twisting it up behind him until he drops the knife. Cas flails out with his other hand, landing a glancing, useless blow to the demon’s jaw, and the demon snarls, throwing him across the hallway.

Cas hits the wall badly, shoulder first, and for a second his vision blacks out as the pain hits him. His right arm is on fire and he's not sure he could move it even if he wanted to. Dislocated, probably, the tiny portion of his brain that's still functioning on a calm, rational level tells him, and he hisses a curse through his teeth.

Above him, the demon laughs. "Naughty little angel. Wouldn't want your daddy to know you're using language like that."

The demon picks him up by the front of his shirt and Cas goes limp. It doesn't help. He's thrown again, sliding across the floor back towards the open doorway.

"See, I'd love to kill you, preferably nice and slow, but I've got orders. If you turn up, we're to keep you alive and mostly in one piece. Isn't that nice for you?"

"Go to Hell," Cas gasps, and in answer the demon kicks at his ribs. Cas is fairly sure he can feel one crack, but the pain is too much to really focus on the individual injuries.

"That's original." The demon hesitates. "Still, I guess 'one piece' isn't too tall an order. I can still have a little fun." He raises his booted foot again, smiling as he sees Cas watching it, reviling at the fear and pain Cas has no doubt he can read on his face. So, instead of giving him the satisfaction, Cas turns his head away.

He can see into the room from here. It's like the spell had shown him, a dark room lit by dozens of flickering candles all clustered around a tall stone altar. There's a body on the altar, the angle too high for Cas to clearly make out its features, but one of its arms has slipped off the stone, the thick silver ring on its hand catching the light. He recognizes it immediately, and Cas' stomach clinches in a way that's unrelated to the pain.

The boot comes down. Cas rolls out of the way before it hits. The surge of adrenaline is enough to give him the strength to stand. The knife is five feet away, where it had fallen when Cas had dropped it and he grabs for it, falling against the carpet as his hand closes on smooth bone.

Even with surprise on Cas' side, the demon is still faster than him. He's over Cas before he has time to get back on his feet. Cas strikes out with a leg, kicking the demon in the knee with as much strength as he can. The force is enough to knock him off balance and Cas kicks him again while he wavers, hooking his other leg. He falls like a tree on top of Cas, the demon’s own weight driving the knife into his chest.

Cas heaves him off with his good arm, painfully easing out from underneath him. He uses the wall to pull himself up, holding his right arm tight against his chest. His ribs burn with every shallow breath, but he tries to ignore the pain. He stumbles on the first step, but catches himself on the doorframe. Cas holds himself there for a second and breathes through the throbbing from his arm. He's half afraid to go any further into the room. He can see the figure on the altar fully now, and it's unmistakably Dean.

Unless it isn't. Unless it's a continuation of his hallucination, or a demon trick, or a shape-shifter just pretending to be him. When he touches him, maybe this vision of Dean will just dissolve into smoke like the one in his dream and he'll be left alone. Again.

He inhales deeply, immediately winces, and closes the distance between door and altar.

From the doorway, he hadn't been able to tell if Dean was breathing. Now that he's closer, it's easier to see the soft rise and fall of Dean's chest, the twitch of his eyelids, like he's caught in a dream.

"Dean." It comes out ragged and broken, more a plea than a question. "Dean, can you hear me?"

There's no answer, not even a change in his breathing.

Cas reaches towards him, but checks himself. Dean looks—normal. Like he's just fallen asleep. There aren’t any visible wounds except for a pinprick on Dean’s neck just above his collar, and Cas guesses they’ve been drugging him. He's dressed in a plain, loose-fitting undyed shirt and pants, more sacrificial victim than anything else. He looks younger and more peaceful than Cas has seen in as long time, and it’s a little too much like blankness on his face the last time Cas they’d been together, when he’d cleaned the blood off his face and wrapped him in a motel sheet.

He's grabbing for Dean's shoulder before he can decide if it's a good idea or not. Dean is solid and real under his hand.

"Dean!"

He wakes up with a start, arms flailing out and catching Cas across the chest, which hurts like Hell, but he doesn't care. He holds onto him, keeping Dean from falling off the narrow altar.

Dean's eyes are wide and wild, and as he tries to fight, Cas realizes just how weak he is. He's trying his hardest to get away from Cas, but even one-armed and beat-up, Cas is able to hold him.

"Dean, it's me. You're safe. I'm here." Cas isn't even sure what he's saying, just that right now he'd say anything to make Dean realize that he's not in danger.

"You're not Castiel," Dean spits out, his voice almost lower than Cas', harsh and just a little broken. "Don't think you can fool me."

"Dean, I promise you, it's me. Just—just look at me, you idiot."

Dean freezes, eyes flicking over Cas' face. "I want proof."

"Fine." Cas carefully lets go of Dean's arm. "But can we do it somewhere else? If there are any more demons, I'm not going to be able to fight them. Just trust me until we get back to the car, and you can throw all the tests at me you want. And, no offense, I'll want to do the same to you."

Dean hesitates. "Sounds fair," he says after a second. He slides his legs off the altar easily enough, but almost falls over when he stands. Cas catches him on instinct before he can hit the carpet, and the look Dean throws him is half hope, half fear. Cas knows how he feels.

"Sam—?" Cas hasn't seen any other signs of activity, but he hasn't searched every corner of the building yet. If he were holding the Winchesters hostage, he'd probably try and separate them as much as he could, or rather, that’s what he _had_ done. That’s a whole mess of regret that Cas really can't think about right now.

Dean shakes his head. "He's not here.”

They make it out of the old building without incident. Going back down the fire escape is the most difficult part. Cas has never tried to climb a ladder one-armed before, and Dean is worryingly weak. Still, they finally make it back to the car, and the look on Dean's face when he sees the Impala is just about enough to convince Cas that yes, this is really Dean.

He finds a silver knife and a bottle of holy water in the trunk, and, with Dean watching him like a hawk, quickly slices across his arm with the knife and splashes himself with the holy water.

Dean's already smiling when he takes the knife and bottle from Cas, and after he's gone through the steps himself, he drops both back into the trunk, and pulls Cas into a hug that would be bone crushing even if he didn't already have damaged ribs.

Cas tries to return the hug, but a pained gasp slips out before he can stop it. Dean releases him and steps back, holding him carefully at arm’s length.

"What did you do to yourself, Cas?"

"I didn't do anything to myself," Cas says. "I was thrown into a wall."

"Let me see your shoulder." Dean's fingers are light and quick, carefully pulling back Cas' jacket. "Why don't I fix this once we get somewhere safer—" He grabs Cas' shoulder and pushes the joint back into place. Cas yelps and jerks away, but after a second of blinding pain, it recedes to a dull, manageable throb.

"Thanks."

Dean is watching him carefully, like he's only just starting to work out what's happened. "Are you staying somewhere?" he asks instead, closing the trunk, and walking to the driver's door.

Cas nods.

"Then let's get out of here."

Cas climbs into the car next to Dean, wincing at the pull on his ribs. He thinks Dean notices, because his frown deepens.

They're only a few blocks away from the building when an explosion shakes the car. Dean swears, eyes flicking up to the rearview mirror, and Cas turns in his seat. Flames are licking around the edges of the windows of the old apartment building, and the street around it sparkles with shattered glass. It could have been a coincidence; it was an old building and it probably had bad gas lines, faulty wiring, and a dozen other things that could cause a fire. Somehow, Cas knows it wasn't any of those.

Dean's back to watching the road, jaw a hard line. Cas gives him the directions back to the motel room as they drive towards the edge of the city, ignoring the wail of sirens behind them, but the silence between them feels hard and uncomfortable, a bit too much like it had been when Cas had first regained his memories after living as Emmanuel. It’s a relief when they finally get back to Tacoma.

It’s getting dark by the time they reach the motel. The room’s cold, and he heads for the thermostat as soon as he’s in the door, then shrugs the bag he’s carrying off his shoulder.

"Are you alright, Dean?" Cas empties his various weapons onto the nearest bed and turns back towards the door when he realizes Dean isn't behind him.

"Yeah," Dean says slowly. "Yeah, I'm fine." He steps carefully into the room and lets the door shut, locking it behind him.

He doesn't sound fine, but pushing Dean has never made him more cooperative. Cas gives up on it for the time being and walks into the tiny bathroom, flicking on the light. He shrugs off his button-up and carefully lifts up his t-shirt, wincing at the mottled dark bruises already painting his skin.

He glances up and meets Dean's eyes in the mirror. Dean's made it to the bathroom doorway, watching him carefully, like Cas is going to vanish.

"You're human now, aren't you? One hundred percent genuine article human."

Cas lets go of his shirt, fabric covering the proof of just how mortal he is. "I Fell," he says simply. "After you and Sam died."

Dean shifts. "How? I mean, you didn't tear your Grace out like Anna did, did you?" His eyes sharpen, like he can spot if Cas' Grace is in place. "Did you?"

Cas takes a deep breath, steadies himself. "Back during the Apocalypse, my ties to Heaven were cut off. This—this was not dissimilar. Except this time, I cut the ties myself. There was no place for me in Heaven, not after what I did, and I'm afraid that I wasn't completely in my right mind at the time." That was a bit of an understatement.

"And you've been, what, living as a human for—how long was I gone this time?"

"It's been a year and a half."

Dean blinks, swallows. "Wow. How time flies." He gives Cas a slow once-over, eyes flickering back to rest on his face. "And you—you've been doing okay?"

Cas shrugs, then regrets it. "It's been—difficult—at times. But overall, yes, I am 'okay'."

Dean's face softens, just a little. "Let me take a look at you." He reaches out and eases Cas' t-shirt over his head. Cas' breath catches and it has nothing to do with the pain in his chest. Dean's hands are gentle, but they tremble slightly as he wraps an Ace bandage around the worst of the damage. The pressure helps a little. "An ice pack would be awesome right around now," Dean muses.

"Are you hurt?” Cas asks. Dean doesn't look hurt, just pale and a little unsteady, but Dean's good at hiding pain.

"Just tired," Dean says, and his attempt at a cocky smile doesn't quite have the punch that Cas is sure he intended. "Tell me I still have clothes in the car?"

"Backseat." Cas reaches for his shirt and shrugs it back over his head. The bandage covers most of his torso, but he still feels exposed. Dean had been carefully not looking, but that didn't make it any more comfortable.

Dean tromps outside and comes back with an old duffle bag a few minutes later. He throws it down, unzips it, and staggers back immediately, coughing.

"What the Hell?"

"They were left in a damp trunk for a year and a half," Cas reminds him. "You can wear some of my clothes, and we can wash those in the morning."

"About that… " Dean hesitates, zips up the bag again, and throws it into a corner so he can sit on the bed. "Do you have a plan?"

"I don't know anything about what brought you back," Cas says. "I was hoping you would have more information."

Dean shakes his head. "All I know was that they wanted me for something big, and that it's demons. And that they've got Sammy."

"We'll find Sam," Cas promises. "They wouldn’t kill him after all the trouble they’ve gone through to raise you both."

Dean's face is hard and unreadable. "That's kind of what I'm afraid of."

"He'll be fine." Cas settles onto the bed across from Dean, their knees almost touching in the narrow space.

For a second, Cas thinks Dean is going to say something else, but he just nods. "Thanks, Cas. It's good to have you back."

_Not as good as it is to have you back_ , Cas thinks, but doesn't say it. This wasn't the time to have that conversation with Dean. It probably would never be the right time.

The conversation drifts into silence after that. Cas brushes his teeth, with Dean watching from the bed like he's a scientist that just discovered the strange habits of an elusive, never-before-seen creature. Then they go to bed, Cas shivering slightly under the too-thin comforter.

Cas doesn't sleep.

He's not used to there being another person sleeping in the same room as him, even in a separate bed. He doesn't think his relationship with Daphne truly counts—he never slept and when she fell asleep, he'd go sit in the living room, meditating or reading until morning. Emmanuel wasn't truly him, just as Cas now isn't completely who he was when he was Castiel. And Cas has never shared a room with someone, much less Dean, that he may have had some inappropriate thoughts about in the past year and a half.

He listens to the sound of Dean's quiet breathing, and it's soothing. Before long, he's attuned to the rhythm enough that when it changes, going harsh and quick, Cas is alert in an instant. He throws off the covers, ignoring the sudden cold, and reaches Dean’s side just as he starts screaming.

Dean wakes up before Cas can decide if he should touch him or not. He jolts up, back pressed against the headboard, hands raised and balled into fists, breathing heavy and ragged.

"C-Cas?"

"It's okay, Dean. You're safe."

Dean snorts out a laugh at that, which Cas ignores.

"You had a nightmare?"

There's that laugh again. "No shit, Sherlock."

Cas frowns at him, which accomplishes nothing. "And I'm guessing you don't want to talk about it?"

"Absolutely not. I'm going to go back to sleep and pretend it didn't happen." Dean slides back under the covers, and rolls over on his side, back towards Cas.

Cas gets back into his own bed, but now the adrenaline is flowing and sleep seems even more impossible than it was before. He waits, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling, and it's a wonderful relief when Dean talks, his voice small and quiet in the dark.

"Just wondering, are you cold over there? Because I'm freezing. I think we need to complain to management."

"If you want to cuddle, you can just say it." Cas regrets the words the second they're out. All his mental prep, promising himself that he wouldn't say anything, that he wouldn't push his and Dean's friendship, was apparently completely useless.

There's a long silence and Cas' heart is painfully fast against his ribs.

Finally, there's the sound of Dean shifting. "Fine. It's too damn cold to do anything else. Get over here and bring your comforter."

Dean's bed is just as cold as Cas', but he barely feels it. He wraps an arm cautiously around Dean's shoulders, and when Dean doesn't pull away he shifts a little closer. Dean's still on his side, and Cas fits perfectly into the space behind him, pressed up against the warmth of Dean's back. Still, it doesn't feel sexual. Dean's still shaking, either from the nightmare or the cold, and all Cas wants is to hold him until the pain goes away.

"You do realize," Dean says, voice muffled by the pillow, "that this is a totally platonic, sharing-body-heat-to-avoid-hypothermia situation between two dudes who are completely best friends and nothing else? You have figured out the distinction between this and, you know, other stuff, in the time you've been human, right?"

"Of course I have, Dean," Cas says quietly.  "I am aware of its applications as a wilderness survival technique. Now go to sleep." He isn't sure what he'd been expecting from Dean. Of course they're friends. Best friends, Dean had said, and a few years ago that would have filled Cas with a kind of warmth that he wouldn't even have been able to understand. Now, the words are just a weight in his stomach, another proof that he and Dean view what they have very differently.

He doesn't expect to fall asleep, not with Dean's words turning over and over in his mind, and his arms wrapped around Dean, but somehow, he does. And despite the cold, Cas sleeps better than he has in as long, long time.

When Cas wakes up, Dean's already awake and in the shower. His off-key singing drifts through the slightly open door and Cas smiles into the pillow. Sam's probably in mortal danger, there's a good chance the world could be ending, again, and he's not sure yet how damaged Dean is—or himself for that matter—but for a few minutes Cas can just be aware of how empty he felt in the last year and half and how, just now, he's starting to feel something close to whole.

Dean comes out of the bathroom and Cas is still in bed, lying there with what he's sure is probably a goofy grin on his face. Dean's wearing Cas' clothes and, while they're not quiet a perfect fit, they're close enough in height that it'll work for now. Cas' t-shirt is a little tighter on Dean than on its previous owner, the fabric stretched snugly across a chest broader and more defined than Cas' comparatively slim build.

Dean shifts. "Yeah, I know, I look ridiculous."

'Ridiculous' is probably not one of the first words Cas would have used, but he just looks away. "It's fine. Clothes are the least of our worries."

Dean crouches down and starts to root through Cas’ duffle bag, finally pulling out a sock. Cas watches him search for a few seconds, then Dean stills and looks up. "About that—last night, when I woke up? I think I had a vision."

Cas blinks. "What makes you say that?"

"It wasn't right for a nightmare and it's not the first dream like that I've had, either. A few nights ago, I dreamed about you. We were in this forest and I told you I needed help. Then you show up."

Cas shifts back the covers, sitting up straighter on the bed. "You asked why I didn't burn your bones."

"How did you know about that?" Dean's expression has gone from tense to something more complex.

"I dreamed it too. That was the reason I came to look for you."

Dean shakes his head. "Wow. Okay, this is seriously weird."

Cas gets up and crosses the room to kneel next to Dean. "What did you see tonight?"

Dean meets Cas' eyes. "I saw where they're keeping Sam."

* * *

It doesn't take long to get out of the motel. Cas had barely unpacked, and Dean's edginess is wearing off on him. Breakfast comes from a drive-through, and Cas learns that Dean can unwrap a burrito one-handed while driving.

There isn't much conversation. Dean turns the music up and sings along loudly, barely more in-tune than he'd been in the shower, but with the same enthusiasm. Cas faces the window to hide his smile, then turns his attention to the map. As far as Dean could tell from his vision, Sam's being held by demons in an farmhouse in South Dakota, not too far from Sioux Falls. If all goes well—and Cas is trying not to be cynical, but he's not very sure it will—they should be there in a day, with plenty of time to rescue Sam and maybe even find out who was behind raising the Winchesters.

In the meantime, Dean's either taking the 'vision-thing' much better than Cas would have expected, or he's just suppressing all thought of it and hoping it goes away. Cas has had enough experience with Dean's coping mechanisms to guess that he's doing the latter. They need to talk about it, but this isn't the time. From what Dean has said, it sounds like this is the first properly awake day he's had since he'd been brought back, since the demons had kept him drugged and be-spelled most of the time.

So, he lets Dean listen to his music and when he gives Dean his slice of pie at lunch, the look on Dean's face more than makes the sacrifice worth it.

The night comes fairly quickly. They're far enough north that as each day draws closer to winter, Cas can see the difference. Dean looks like he wants to push on, but Cas insists they stop for the night in the next town they come across. Dean makes a point of asking for two doubles at reception, and Cas doesn't say anything, even when his bed is cold and unwelcoming. His dreams are unpleasant that night, and even though he doesn't remember them in the morning, the lingering uneasiness remains.

Dean seems determinedly cheerful in the morning, but it's easy enough to see that his act is starting to crack. Cas wishes he wouldn't do this—don't they know each other well enough that Dean would know it's pointless trying to lie?—but he knows just as well that saying anything would be futile.

Instead, he just watches Dean clean his gun, then a spare handgun that he gives to Cas. The cold metal weight is strange in his hand. He can shoot, or at least he could, but he has a feeling that holding it on someone, even a monster, and pulling the trigger will be more difficult than when he was an angel. Just the idea makes his stomach twist.

They've left the Rockies behind and the flat expanse of the Midwest stretches before them. Dean isn't singing along with the music today. He's tight-lipped and pale, knuckles stark white against the steering wheel. 

Cas notices, but says nothing.

He's not sure if he would have recognized through his movements alone that Dean was in pain before he’d Fallen. His knowledge of body language had been fuzzy when he was an angel, and it's only in the last year that he's started to learn the little signs that hinted at someone's emotions or motives. Before, he would have felt Dean's pain, something separate from him, but easy enough to read at a glance or a thought. In retrospect, the casualness with which he'd used his power to understand the world around him almost feels like cheating.

Not that it makes any difference now. Either way, he can sense that Dean is hurting, and he still can't do anything to stop it.

"Do you want me to drive?" he says after a while.

Dean's eyebrows creep towards his hairline. "You can drive?"

"I drove all the way from Chicago to Washington, Dean. I think you can safely assume that my skills are adequate. Also, I have a license."

Somehow, the eyebrows manage to go higher, but now the corners of Dean's eyes are crinkling, tiny wrinkles that Cas had never noticed before radiating out in spider-web cracks. He thinks he likes them.

"Sorry, man, I'm just trying to imagine you in line at the DMV. How did that go?"

"It went perfectly fine." There had been a few awkward moments, since it was still relatively early in Cas' newfound humanity, but he'd passed the test. Barely. He's become a better driver since.

"And what name did you put on the license?"

Cas shifts. "Cas Novak. It was close enough."

Dean glances over at him. "Cas? Not Castiel?"

Cas looks down at his hands. "I'm not Castiel now. Castiel was an angel— I'm just a man."

"Yeah, but you're pretty badass for a puny human."

He looks up at Dean and realizes that he's blushing slightly. And is he imagining the flick of Dean's eyes down Cas' body?

"There's nothing inherently ‘puny’ about being human, Dean. By your standards, perhaps I am less than physically capable, but that's my own fault. I've—gotten soft."

Dean's eyes are back on the road, but he claps a hand on Cas' shoulder. "Hey, I saw what you did to those demons back in Tacoma. That didn't look soft to me."

Cas smiles, just a little, but he doesn't think Dean notices. Dean hasn’t moved his hand and Cas isn't sure if he realizes it's still there or not. The physical contact seems to be helping him, though. Some of the tension eases out of his shoulders and his fingers rest relaxed on the steering wheel. If Cas is being perfectly honest, it's helping him, too. Dean's hand is warm and grounding even through his layers of shirts, and Cas leans into the touch before he's aware of his actions.

For a long while, the car is quiet except from the softer than usual strains of the radio. The miles stretch on, and Cas' vision starts going hazy as he focuses onto the far distance.

Finally, Dean makes a soft noise and his hand slides off Cas' shoulder. Cas blinks as he pulls into a turnout.

"Fine," Dean says, like he's just lost some big argument. "You can drive, but don’t get used to it. This is a one time, the-driver-just-got-pulled-out-of-the-afterlife deal." He gets out and Cas slides into the driver's seat. 

"Are you okay, Dean?" he asks carefully as Dean settles next to him.

"What, a guy can't get tired now?"

Cas stifles a sigh. Oh joy. The defensiveness is back; there’s no mistaking that edge to Dean's voice. He ignores it and pulls out onto the road. Dean slumps back against the leather and closes his eyes. Cas tries to focus on the highway, but every few minutes he finds himself glancing over and checking if Dean's still breathing.

They could probably press on and reach the town in Dean's vision before nightfall but they need food and rest, and Dean's clearly not doing as well as he says. He fell asleep not longer after Cas took over driving, and he's still asleep when Cas finds a motel. He wakes up a little when Cas gets out, but doesn't object when Cas goes in to rent a room. He asks for two doubles and pretends he's not hoping they won't need the second one. It's not even a desire for Dean, though that's there too, he just wants to be close. He's been on his own for a while now, but he's only just starting to realize how alone he'd really been.

Dean makes it inside on his own, takes off his shoes, and flops otherwise fully dressed onto the bed closest to the door. Cas carefully edges the comforter out from under him and pulls it over Dean.

"Thanks, mom," Dean mumbles, but he's smiling. He's asleep a few seconds later.

Cas considers showering, but doesn't like the prospect of sleeping with wet hair. Instead, he pulls out his hat and gloves, and goes to find food. It takes a while. It's six o'clock, and it feels like the whole population is trying to eat at one of the town's two restaurants. He finally makes it through the line at Biggerson's to get his take-out. It's starting to snow when he leaves the restaurant, big, fat flakes that settle on his coat without melting. With the cloud cover, it's a little warmer than it was the last few nights, but it's still too cold to linger outside.

Dean wakes up once the smell of burgers starts to fill the room. He looks better than he had when Cas left, and much better than he had earlier that day. He's obviously still exhausted, but he doesn't look like he's in as much pain.

"How are you feeling?" Cas asks as he pushes Dean's burger over to him. Dean tears into it like he hasn't eaten in a month.

He shrugs. "No one ever talks about how tired being dead makes you," he mumbles around a mouthful of burger. He swallows. "It's been a while, but I could swear I didn't feel this bad when you brought me back."

"You were dead for longer this time," Cas says quietly. "And it looks like you were brought back by demons, not angels." He pauses, considering. "There's also the lingering effects of whatever the demons were giving you to keep you compliant. It should be wearing off by now."

Dean mumbles something that Cas can't quite make out and dives back into his food. Cas eats his own burger a little slower. They're going to get to where Dean saw the demons keeping Sam tomorrow, and he's not sure what they'll find. The thought of Sam alone and a prisoner makes his heart clinch, but right now, he's more worried about Dean. He'd throw everything into rescuing his brother and, right now, that might be more than he can give and still keep himself in one piece. Cas isn't much of a fighter, not anymore, and keeping himself and Dean alive in a fight, not to mention Sam, might be too much. Still, that doesn't mean they won't try. He won't—and Dean can't—abandon Sam, even if it kills them.

"It's snowing," he says, since that seems easier than trying to vocalize anything else.

Dean nods, unsurprised. "It'll be snowing tomorrow too. I saw that in my dream."

Cas looks up at him. "You're taking this very calmly."

"Look, I know demons have all kinds of tricks. Back when Yellow-Eyes was trying to make Sam his new general, there was this kid—Andy—who could beam pictures of whatever he wanted you to see into your head. I know these aren't real visions, not even visions like Sam's. This is just some bastard demon trying to lure me into a trap."

"And you're going to take the bait?" Cas has considered this possibility, but he hadn't expected Dean to. He _is_ a little surprised that it doesn't change his own feelings about finding the farmhouse tomorrow.

"Do I really have a choice?" Dean shrugs again and starts picking at the edge of the tinfoil his hamburger had come in. "It's Sammy, Cas." He looks up, meets Cas' eyes. "I'm not going to ask you to come with me, though. If this really is a trap, I'm not leading you into it."

Cas doesn't even hesitate. "I'm staying with you, Dean."

Dean's smile is one of the best things Cas has seen in days. "Thanks, man."

It's still fairly early, so they watch a little TV and Cas dazzles Dean with his newfound knowledge of popular culture, which, while small, is still greater than it was a year and a half ago. He spends the next hour or so catching Dean up on what had happened while he was gone, focusing more on big world events than what he'd been doing. Dean doesn't ask, but Cas can read his curiosity from across the room whenever Cas strays too close to something personal. He ignores it. There'll be time for that later if they’re not dead tomorrow. Either way, it doesn't matter.

Finally, they start to settle into bed. Cas is just about to flick off the bed stand light when Dean's voice stops him.

"Dammit, Cas, there's no way to say this and not sound like a total girl. Uh, are you still cold?"

"Very," Cas replies without thinking, and then the implications of what Dean said sink in. They don't have long to register because there's movement to his left, and then the bed dips as Dean slides in next to him.

"This okay?" Dean asks, voice deeper than usual, rough with nerves, and Cas' breath catches slightly.

"Yeah. Like you said, it's—it's cold."

Dean is warm next to him, even through two layers of fabric. Cas edges closer before he realizes that a, he's _snuggling_ , and b, he has no idea how close Dean had really wanted to be to him. Dean makes a sleepy, contented noise deep in his throat, though, and moves towards him, and that's enough for Cas.

He's almost asleep when Dean mutters something into Cas' shoulder.

"Dean?" His own voice is barely more than a whisper.

"This is nice." Dean sounds like he's barely conscious. "You keep the nightmares away, you know that? You always have."

"Go to sleep, Dean." In the dark, Cas smiles.

* * *

Cas wakes up when the first dim light creeps through the curtains. Dean's still asleep, flat on his stomach with one arm wrapped around his pillow and the other thrown across Cas' chest. Cas edges free and pads into the bathroom.

He takes a long shower, turning his face up to the stream so it beats at his eyelids, the water drowning out everything else. His hand drifts to his groin, and he strokes himself quickly, lost in the still new sensations. Later, when he's drying himself off, struggling to get dressed as quickly as he can in the chilly bathroom, he tries to pretend that he hadn't been thinking of Dean as he came.

Dean's still asleep, so he goes out and checks on the car, then goes to find coffee. The snow stopped falling some time in the night, but the gunmetal gray sky promises that more is on the way. He's never driven in the snow before, so hopefully Dean will feel well enough to drive today, among other things. If he's in the same shape he was yesterday, rescuing Sam has officially become a suicide mission.

The coffee is warm in his hands and Cas flexes his fingers against the cups on his way back to the motel. It's still early, and the town is quiet except for the crunch of snow under his boots.

It's dark in the motel room after the glaring whiteness outside, and it takes his eyes a second to adjust. Dean's still wrapped in a pile of blankets on the bed—it looks like he’d taken advantage of Cas' absence to wrap the rest of the comforter around him.

Cas sets the coffee down on the nightstand, and carefully reaches for what he hopes is Dean's shoulder. It's a little hard to tell under all the blankets.

"Dean?"

Dean startles awake, arms flailing out only to be caught by the blankets. He rolls away from Cas, and his eyes are wide and bright even in the dim light.

"It's okay, it's me," Cas says carefully.

Dean lets out a ragged breath, and some of the tension drains out of his face. "Cas?"

"Are you alright?"

It takes a second but Dean manages to untangle his arms from the sheet. He drags a hand over his face and through his hair, pushing it up into messy spikes. Cas tries to ignore how adorable that makes him look, because if there's one thing that Dean isn't, it's adorable.

"Just a nightmare," he says finally. "Thanks for waking me up."

Cas nods. "I have breakfast."

He'd found an apple turnover for Dean, the kind he'd imagined Dean would like when he was working in the convenience store. From the way Dean's whole face brightens when he sees it, Cas decides he probably wasn't mistaken. Cas picks at his own muffin, his stomach too tight and uncomfortable to eat much.

Hunting down the demons in Seattle was one thing. He'd been desperate to chase down his vision of Dean and barely even thought about the consequences. This is different. Now, there's Dean to worry about too, not to mention that the whole thing is probably a trap.

He can tell Dean's concerned too, though he doesn't show it. He eats his turnover with enthusiasm and more explicit noises than Cas really needed to hear this early in the morning—at least when they're not directed at him—and finishes off the sad remains of Cas' muffin. He's louder than usual as they pack the car, banging the trunk shut with a flourish and whistling until it grates on Cas' nerves.

Dean does apparently feel well enough to drive, and has no problems with the snow. Cas settles back into his seat, glancing over at Dean. Dean's focused on the road and his unconcerned, carefree mask is starting to slip again. "Just a nightmare," he'd said, but Cas knows what his nightmares are like.

"You mind if we listen to some tunes?" Dean asks after they've been driving for about a quarter of an hour. Cas had been wondering what had taken him so long, but he's a little touched that Dean's actually asking. From what he'd heard, that was more consideration than he gave Sam when it came to his music.

Cas nods, and Dean smiles at him, for a second honest and happy, as he reaches over to fiddle with the radio dial.

He goes through four channels before making a disgusted noise and giving up. "Seriously? It's the middle of freakin' November and they're already playing Christmas songs? Here—" He holds out a hand. "Grab one of the tapes."

Cas reaches underneath his seat and pulls out one of the tapes at random. Despite Dean's best efforts a few years ago, he has no real favorites from Dean's collection. The music fills up the car and Cas only half listens to the heavy beat, focusing instead on watching the white fields flash by, or, when he can get a chance without looking too obvious, stealing a glance at Dean. When "Highway to Hell" comes on and Dean fast-forwards through the song, Cas pretends not to notice that either.

It's over two hundred miles from the town they stopped in for the night to the turnoff toward the even tinier town in Dean's vision. Just past Mitchell, they turn north off I-90 onto a highway that's more narrow country road than anything else. Cas has no idea how they'll be able to find one farmhouse out here, but Dean seems to know where they're going.

They follow the road for a few miles before Dean pulls off onto a snow-covered dirt road. "I think this is it," he says, but he doesn't sound very sure. Cas swallows and nods.

After a few minutes, a two-story house comes into view at the end of the road. There are no trees, no cover, no way to hide their approach. They're exposed and vulnerable. If any demons are watching from the house, they've probably already spotted them.

"Oh, fuck it," Dean says, and accelerates. They're going as fast as they can on the snowy road, but Cas isn't sure if the extra speed will make a difference. The memory of Dean driving into Stull Cemetery, reckless and desperate, comes back to him, and Cas' fingers tighten against the seat.

"Why don't you get the bag out of the backseat?" Dean says, and he sounds perfectly calm.

He twists around and pulls the duffle bag holding the weapons Dean's cleaned and oiled in the last few days into his lap. Dean's favorite gun and Ruby's knife aren't there, just an angel sword and the handgun Dean had picked out for him. Cas slips the gun into his waistband, like he's seen Dean do a hundred times, and picks up the sword. Once he would have been able to tell which of his brothers or sisters the sword had belonged to. Now it's just cold, lifeless metal.

"Cas," Dean says, and he sounds almost hesitant. "Cas, if this doesn't go the way we want—I just want you to know that I'm glad you're here. You didn't have to be, I know you have your own life now, but still, thanks." His eyes flick away from the house, just for a second, finding Cas' face, and he looks so lost under the tough mask he's putting on that it makes Cas' insides twist painfully.

"I wouldn't leave you, Dean," he says. "Not now." More like he _couldn't_ leave, but he's not going to tell Dean that. He's learning there's a fine line between what he wants to say and what Dean wants to hear.

They slide a little on the snow as Dean brakes, already reaching for the door handle. They're out of the car almost before Dean's parked, boots squelching in the mushy snow.

The house looks deserted, one more family farm that's lost everything, but there are dark tire tracks on the road and the snow by the front door is already trampled into slush.

Dean breaks down the door in one smooth movement and Cas follows him inside, gripping his sword tightly enough that his knuckles are white against the metal.

Inside, the house feels as deserted as it looks from the outside. It's dark and cold, and Cas shivers even under his four layers of clothes. In front of him, Dean's a comforting, solid shape.

They move through the rooms quickly, scanning them with a tactical team's precision, and Cas barely has time to wonder how long it'd taken Dean to learn how to do this. He's truly scared for the first time since he became human, and it's unexpectingly visceral. His unease is a solid weight sitting in his stomach and his heart is pounding, breath coming in short inhales made painful by the frozen air.

The house seems perfectly ordinary. It's mostly bare of furniture and there are no pictures or knickknacks, nothing to distinguish its previous owners, human or otherwise. There are no signs of demons, and Cas isn't sure if he should be worried or comforted.

The basement is the last room. Dean takes the stairs two at a time, and Cas follows almost as quickly. It's pitch black, and Cas is too busy trying to make sure he doesn't trip on the stairs to realize that the sound of Dean's footsteps has stopped. He just barely catches himself before he bumps into Dean's back.

"Dammit, hang on." There's long pause, then Dean finds the flashlight in his jacket. The light makes Cas blink, but at least they can see what they're up against.

It’s empty. If there was anything living—or not—it's gone. Something has been here, though.

The room is set up like the one he found Dean in. There’s stone altar in the center of the basement, surrounded by candles, with wards and sigils painted on the floor and walls. He recognizes them as signs to ward off angels and detection by magic. Whatever they'd been doing here, they didn't want to be discovered.

"Sam was here," Dean says quietly, looking down at the altar. There are a few drops of congealing blood on it, not enough to be from a significant wound, but still proof that the altar had been used, and recently.

"They knew we were coming. If they gave you that vision, then they probably knew just how long it would take for you to get here."

Dean's still standing frozen, staring at the blood like if he looks at it long enough, it'll tell him what happened.

"It was all a diversion, wasn't it? They're playing with us."

 "Probably. Come on, Dean, we need to get out of here."

Dean doesn't seem particularly willing to move, so Cas grabs his arm and tugs him in the direction of the stairs. He doesn't resist, letting Cas lead him back up the steps and through the deserted house. Cas knows he's probably gripping Dean’s arm a little too tightly but he can't shake the feeling that if he lets go, Dean might just slip away. He holds on.

The car is where they left it and there are no signs of attacking demons. Still, Cas' heart is still pounding when he slides into the driver's seat and that Dean doesn't protest doesn't help. Cas eases the Impala back out onto the highway, not daring to look over at Dean until the tires hit asphalt.

They drive in silence until they reach the intersection with the highway.

"Where do we go now?" Cas asks, idling at the stop sign. Mitchell's closer, but Sioux Falls is familiar. Of course, if this were a trap, the demons might assume that they'd head for Bobby's old house. They should probably just keep driving until they're far, far away from here.

Dean's still and pale in the passenger's seat. "Does it really matter?" he says finally. "Sam could be anywhere. The demons have him and I've got no way of tracking him down. It doesn't matter where the fuck we go, because the demons are always going to be one step ahead of us and we're going to be stuck playing their games."

"I'm going to Sioux Falls," Cas says, and turns east. Dean's gone quiet again, but his words are still echoing in the car. He's right, of course. It's almost painfully easy for the demons. They know that Dean will jump at any clue they give him about his brother’s whereabouts and they also know that he's still half dead, his only ally a comparatively helpless ex-angel. The demons could lead them in circles until they died of old age and they still would never find Sam. They're going to have to be proactive.

"I used a spell to find you," Cas says quietly. "I can try it again, see if we can locate Sam that way."

"Is it dangerous for you?" Dean's frowning, obviously wrestling between his two prime directives of ‘ _Look out for Sammy’_ , and ‘ _Anything Witch-y is Evil_.’

"It's tiring," Cas admits. "But not dangerous. It uses the power of my soul, not anything demon."

"When can you try it?"

Cas hesitates. "I can do it tonight, I think."

The light touch of Dean's hand on his shoulder makes Cas jump. "Thanks, man. You know what this means to me."

Cas just nods and focuses on the road.

Once they're in town, Cas checks them into a motel and Dean brings in their bags. He's doing a little better, and Cas guesses he just hadn't reacted well to finding nothing. If he'd been thinking along the same lines as Cas, he'd probably been expecting, if not Sam, at least some sort of a fight. The casual teasing was much, much worse, as was the reminder that the demons had Sam, and there was nothing they could do about it.

He sets up the spell more quickly than he did the first time. Dean's watching from a safe distance, which makes Cas smile a little—it's not like he's working with explosives.

Once again, the words of the spell are difficult at first, but quickly begin to flow faster than Cas' brain can process them. It feels a little like falling. Sparks dance at the corners of his vision and he grips the edge of the table hard, trying to center himself.

All he gets is a flash. For a fraction of a second, he sees Sam, face bloodied, still as death except for the flicker behind his eyelids, like he's dreaming. Around him, there's nothing but darkness, no sign that could point them towards where the demons are holding him. Cas can feel it the instant that another force takes over the spell. Pain lances through his head and everything goes black. He falls to the floor, but he’s not aware of it, still trapped in the darkness in his head.

"Cas? Come on, Cas, talk to me!"

Someone's shaking him, hands rough and panicked on his shoulders. It hurts to open his eyes, but he can't ignore Dean.

"You back with me?" Dean's breathing hard, and hasn't let go of Cas yet. His fingers are digging into the muscle hard enough to hurt.

"I'm fine," Cas gasps, which is more or less true. His head is pounding, but he's alive. "Sam's alive," he manages, "but whatever has him is powerful. They blocked me. I wasn't able to get anything."

Dean lets his hands fall away as he sits back on his heels. They're on the floor, Cas realizes, the rough carpet scratching against his back.

"I blacked out?"

"Dude, you practically had a seizure. Another couple of seconds, and I was calling 911."

"Oh." Cas tries to sit up, but his muscles don't seem to want to work yet. "Help me up?"

Dean gets an arm around him and pulls him up onto his feet without much difficulty. Cas is barely standing before there's a rush of static in his ears, and black spots obscure his sight. He grabs for Dean, hands fisting in his shirt, trying to keep himself upright.

"Whoa, I got you." Dean maneuvers him over to the bed and lets him sink down onto the comforter.

"I'm sorry, I don't think I can use that spell again." Cas' voice sounds faint in his own ears.

"Just stay with me, okay? I'm gonna get you water. Don't you dare fall asleep."

Actually, falling asleep sounds nice. Cas settles back against the pillows and tries to focus on his breathing. It's a long time before Dean comes back, or maybe it just feels like it. He's got a glass of water and two aspirin, which stick a little in Cas' throat when he tries to swallow them. By now, the buzzing in his ears has quieted and he can see normally. His head still hurts, but it's better.

"Are you going to be okay?" Dean's still sitting on the edge of the bed, frowning at him.

"I'll be fine." He shifts, rolling over on his side so he's facing Dean. "I just need some rest." 

Dean's frown stays fixed in place.

"It's not a concussion," Cas tells him. "I had acute psychic trauma, not brain damage."

"Still..." Dean doesn't look convinced.

"Why don't you go out and find food? I'll be fine here."

"I'll stick around for a while. Let me know if you need anything." The bed shifts as Dean stands. Cas rolls over, buries his face into the pillow, and sleeps.

When he wakes up, it's dark and Dean's gone. For a second, he panics, and then he remembers that he’d told Dean to go get food. He'll be back soon.

There's a wave of dizziness when he stands, but it passes. He makes it into the bathroom, refills the glass Dean had left by the sink, and splashes water on his face. It's cold enough to make his breath catch, but it chases away the lingering drowsiness. He carries the glass back to bed, and settles in to wait for Dean.

He makes it through two episodes of some cooking show before he starts to worry.

Back before they left Tacoma, Dean had picked out one of the burner phones in the glove box and given Cas the number. He digs his phone out of his bag with hands that are certainly not shaking and finds Dean's number in speed-dial.

Dean answers just before it's about to go to voice mail. "Cas?" He sounds surprised, and the word's maybe a little slurred. "You okay?"

"I just wanted to make sure you were alright." It doesn't come off as suave as Cas had hoped, but it's better than it could have been.

"Oh, geeze, I was going to get you food, wasn't I?"

"It's all right, I'm not particularly hungry." He pauses, listening. There's a low rumble of background noise behind Dean's voice, and it takes Cas a moment to place the sounds. "Are you in a bar?"

There's a short pause. "Yeah," Dean says finally. "That a problem?" The defensiveness in his voice makes Cas wince.

He closes his eyes, but it doesn't do anything to help the reemergence of his headache. "No, of course not. Just be careful. We don't know if there are still demons in the area."

"Yeah, of course. I'll be back soon. You gonna be okay?"

"I'll be fine."

Dean hangs up. Cas stares at his phone for a second, then sets it down on the bedside table. It's Dean's choice if he wants to go out and drink until he forgets, which is what Cas is fairly sure he's doing. He's a grown man. It's not like Cas has ever been able to tell him what to do, even when he was an angel.

Cas groans and gets out of bed. He pads over to the window, pulling back the curtain just enough so he can see the Impala parked outside. At least he doesn't have to worry about Dean driving back. He lies back down and tries to focus on his breathing again. It must work, because the next thing he knows, the door is crashing open and Dean's stumbling inside.

"Hey Cas," Dean slurs, and he sounds happy, at least. "You didn't have to wait up, buddy."

"I didn't," Cas tells him, but Dean's not paying attention. He's trying to get his shoes off without falling, which is apparently more difficult than Cas would have thought.

He watches him for a minute before he takes pity on him. "Sit." He pushes Dean down onto the edge of the bed.

"Ooh, you're bossy," Dean says. "I like it when you're bossy."

Cas resists the temptation to roll his eyes. "Give me your foot." It takes a second to untangle the laces and pull Dean's shoe off. The second one is easier. Dean hadn't tried to take that one off yet and the knot isn't snarled beyond recognition.

When his shoes are off, Dean plops backwards with a sigh. Cas sits carefully on the other bed. "Did you have a good evening?" he asks.

"It was...awesome," Dean says, making a sweeping gesture with his hands for emphasis.

"Well, at least you're a happy drunk."

""M not drunk!" Dean sounds genuinely offended, and Cas stifles a smile.

"You're sure about that?"

"Absolutely. I may be a little, uh, tipsy, but that's just 'cause being dead makes your tolerance go—" He imitates the sound of something falling, followed by an explosion. He frowns. "It's sad, really."

For a second, neither of them speaks. Then Dean reaches out towards Cas. "Come 'ere. I wanna tell you a secret."

Cas lets Dean pull him onto the bed. He settles back against the headboard, trying to keep a respectable distance between him and Dean. It's surprisingly difficult.

"See, I've been thinking about it, ever since I woke up." Dean's voice is pitched to a stage whisper. "I don't know where I was."

It takes Cas a minute, trying to trace back through what Dean had said to—oh.

"You don't remember where your soul went?" he asks, just to clarify.

Dean shakes his head. "Not a freakin' clue."

"I'm sure you were in Heaven," Cas says carefully. Maybe Dean will take it at face value and let it go. Cas isn't sure either of them is going to like this train of thought if it plays out.

Dean snorts. "Yeah, like they'd let me upstairs after everything Sammy and me did to mess up their Apocalypse. Nah, I think I went the other way."

Cas freezes. Just because he'd been thinking about it didn't mean that Dean should have been. He'd wondered about where the boy's souls had gone a few times. The first time he contemplated that particular metaphysical question was also the first time he got drunk as a human. He avoided both after that.

"And if it was just Hell," Dean went on, "I could deal with that. But what if I started torturing again? A year and a half—that's a long time. How many souls—" He breaks off, shuddering.

Cas says nothing, but he reaches out and finds Dean's shoulder, giving it what he hopes is a comforting squeeze.

Dean's not finished, though.

"And then there's you."

Cas' breath catches. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, if I wasn't headed towards Hell before, I sure am now." Dean pulls away from him, propping himself up on one elbow so he can look at Cas. Which he does, with enough intensity to make Cas squirm. It's equal parts awkward and arousing, and he's trying very hard to focus on the former.

"You show up with your stupid hair, like some stupid knight in shining armor, and I can't—" Dean swallows hard. "You used to be a fuckin’ _angel_ , and if that’s not messed up—I can't deal with this." 

"Dean, I don't understand. Are you—are you angry with me?" He'd thought everything was going well, or at least as well as could be expected with Sam missing, Dean weak from his resurrection, and Cas, well, whatever the Hell Cas is now. Maybe he was wrong.

"Angry?" Dean's face is written over with confusion and maybe a little bit of hurt. "Why the Hell would I be angry with you?"

Cas frowns. "Then—"

Dean sits up, then bends down, one hand going in Cas' hair and the other framing his jaw as he leans down. Cas can see it coming. He has more than enough time to push Dean off, to tell him that he's drunk and needs to go to sleep, to stop this before anything happens. But he doesn't.

Instead, he meets Dean halfway, pulls him closer, his hands catching on Dean's jacket.

Dean's lips aren't quite as soft as Cas had imagined they might be, and he tastes of liquor, but it doesn't matter. Cas groans against him and Dean presses forward, licking into his mouth. It's not a very coordinated kiss, even in Cas' very limited experience, but it's good, and he lets it go on for longer than he should.

"Wait," he finally gasps, turning his head away from Dean. "We need to stop. You only want this because you're drunk. I'm not going to let you do something you'll regret in the morning." Because, dammit, one of them has to behave like a responsible adult. Cas just really, really wishes it didn't have to be him.

"I always want you," Dean mumbles against his ear, and while Cas would like to think he's telling the truth, he's known Dean for a long time. He's drunk and self-doubting, and Cas just happens to be the one here, too caught up in his own feelings to turn him away from the beginning like he'd needed to. Fuck.

 "Come on." He pushes at Dean, and he backs up obediently. Cas is just going to have to ignore the hurt and confusion on his face, because he can't go through with this if he pays too much attention to it. “Get under the covers.”

Dean obeys, but he doesn’t pull the blankets over himself. “You gonna join me?”

Cas thinks maybe he’s trying to sound seductive, but it comes out a little too slurred to have the desired effect.

“No,” Cas tells him, and turns around, tugging back the comforter of his own bed.

“Please—” Dean catches at the back of his shirt. “Please, Cas, I just don’t wanna be alone.”

Cas is a coward. A horrible, craven coward. He walks around the foot of Dean’s bed and slides in next to him, trying to ignore how nice Dean’s warmth is against the cold air. They’ve done this before and it managed to stay perfectly innocent. He tries not to tense as Dean wraps around him with what feels like more arms and legs than he should possess, but it seems like Dean’s odd mood has passed.

“Did I ever tell you that you smell really nice?” Dean mumbles, voice muted by Cas’ shoulder. Or maybe it hasn’t. “Like, _really_ nice.”

“Go to sleep, Dean.” Cas reaches up and turns off the light. By the time he’s managed to arrange himself in some semblance of comfort, Dean’s already snoring.

Cas doesn’t sleep well. It takes him a long time just to fall asleep and even then it doesn’t last. He wakes up a few hours later, jittery and uncomfortable, and when he realizes that there’s no way he’s going to get more sleep tonight, he carefully extricates himself from Dean’s grip, and gets up.

Sam’s laptop is out in the Impala, and it’s cold enough Cas is fairly sure he can feel frostbite spreading across his skin while he’s trying to find it. It doesn’t want to start either, and it takes several long minutes of careful prodding to get it to work. Cas has limited experience with computers. He’s seen April’s children use them often enough that he thinks he understands the basics and, before that, he’d watched Sam and Dean research, though he hadn’t paid much attention to their methods at the time. Still, he knows the things to look for.

Dean wakes up a little after eight, bleary-eyed and faintly green. He vanishes into the bathroom as soon as he’s awake, and Cas is just about to start getting worried when he comes back out, less green but still a little unsteady.

“Morning,” Dean says, and it sounds like he’s been gargling broken glass.

Cas hesitates. Dean isn’t acting like anything happened last night, and while Cas would love to think it’s because of his self-confidence and ease of accepting possibly new and/or suppressed aspects of his personality, it’s _Dean_. Cas isn’t going to get his hopes up.

“Feeling better?” he asks, closing the laptop and standing. His vertebrae reorient with a satisfying _pop_ as he stretches. Motel chairs are not meant for overnight researching marathons.

“Not really,” Dean says. “Guess I made it home okay last night?”

“You don’t remember?” Cas says carefully.

Dean shakes his head. “Not a thing.” He pauses, considering. “I didn’t do anything stupid, did I?”

Cas can still feel the echo of Dean’s lips against his own. He shakes his head.

“Well, that’s something.” He sits across the table from Cas, covering his face with his hands. Cas knows he’s hovering, so he sits too and tries not to stare.

“Will you be all right?” He’s aching to reach out and touch him, to be the thing anchoring Dean in reality and not whatever self-loathing universe he’s trapped himself in. That’s all he’s ever wanted.

“It’s just a hangover, Cas, I’ll be fine,” Dean snaps, harsher than Cas hopes he means.

“I did some research last night,” Cas says, and waits carefully for Dean’s reaction.

Dean lifts his head off his arms and looks at him. His eyes are bloodshot, and Cas isn’t sure it’s just from last night’s overindulgence.

“It took me a while to learn how to use the search engines, but I think I was able to locate a series of demonic omens. It’s not a guarantee, but I hope I may have found where the demons are holding Sam, or where they were, at least.”

Dean blinks at him. “I don’t know what to be more impressed by,” he says finally. “That you used the computer or that you found the bastards.”

“ _May_ have found them. I’m not sure yet.”

“Where?”

Cas turns the computer around.

“New Mexico?” Dean frowns. “Well, that’s not far away _at all_.”

“It could be another trap.” Cas has been turning it over in his head for the better part of the morning. He can’t put it past the demons to lay a false trail, but the omens looked too messy, too imprecise to be deliberate. A few barely-reported strange cattle deaths, a freak winter thunderstorm, and two disappearances in a fifty-mile radius were not exactly a glaring pattern.

Dean shrugs. “So? As far as traps go, their last one kind of sucked.”

“They weren’t trying to hurt you,” Cas tells him. “They were trying to demoralize you. And it worked.”

He gets a glare for that. “Wow, Cas, thanks.”

“You mean to tell me that you would have drunk as much as you did last night if you’d found Sam, or even if you’d just been able to kill some demons?”

Dean shoves that laptop across the tiny table to him and lets his head fall back onto his arms. “Getting drunk isn’t exactly a new coping strategy for me. You know that. It’s time-honored Winchester tradition.” His forearm muffles his voice, and Cas has to strain to hear.

He really doesn’t know what to say to that. So, he decides to use the other Winchester tradition: ignore and repress. “We should get ready to leave,” he says. “Like you said, it’s a long way to New Mexico.”

Dean groans and pushes himself upright. “Do you want to drive again?” Cas must look shocked, because Dean quickly backtracks. “Just until the headache’s gone. This isn’t a permanent thing.”

Cas nods and closes the laptop. There isn’t too much to take back out to the Impala—it had been too cold the night before to take the time to bring anything but the necessities into the motel room. They’re checked out by nine o’clock, Cas easing the Impala out onto the thankfully well-snowplowed highway.

“So, how much of the human experience have you, you know, experienced?”

“What?” Cas glances over at Dean, who’s huddled up in the passenger seat, his eyes hidden by over-large sunglasses that look a little ridiculous on him. He’s grinning, wide and just a little lewd, and Cas can’t help but think of the way he looked the night before, right after they kissed. It’s tempting to kiss him again and wipe that smug look off his face, but he knows he can’t. Instead, he settles for turning back to the road, fingers tight on the steering wheel.

“Come on, it’s been, what, a year and half since you lost your angel mojo? You can’t tell me you’ve spent that whole time living a life of quiet contemplation.”

“I haven’t found the occasion to engage in many activities. I have been to a movie theater.” He’d gone with April and her children once, and now, he can’t even remember what film they’d seen. All he can remember is how bright and loud the movie was, the taste of the fake butter on his popcorn, how he’d wished, even with people he’d learned to care about around him, that it was Dean sitting next to him, stealing his popcorn and whispering in his ear.

“Well, that’s something, I guess.” Dean doesn’t look convinced. “You need to get out more.”

“I ‘get out.’” Cas doesn’t know why he’s arguing. He knows that his life as a human had, until recently, been quite uneventful. Still, it’s not like he sat around missing his friends and family until Dean came back into his life. He had a job. He watched TV. He learned how to read humans other than the Winchesters, began to try and understand their motives and desires. He’s starting to understand his own.

Dean huffs out a soft laugh, then purses his lips, considering. “So, I’m guessing you still haven’t gotten laid?”

“And if I had, would that be any of your business?” Cas hopes he isn’t blushing. He’s had a few offers, or he thinks he has—understanding human flirtation is still something of a mystery to him—but he hasn’t acted on any of them. Perhaps he’s been foolish, but he’d rather wait for something more than a one-night stand, and he’s found other means to satisfy the cravings for release he’s experienced now that he’s fully human.

Dean smirks, raising his hands in surrender. “Whatever you say, man.” He reaches for the radio. “Let’s have some tunes.”

The snow lasts as they head south, driving past endless, wide, white fields. _Zeppelin IV_ lasts them for most of the morning, and after they stop for lunch in a truck-stop diner on the Iowa/Nebraska border, they drive on in silence. Dean drives after they stop and Cas doesn’t contest. He’s tired, and his eyes hurt from watching the snow-covered countryside.

They start traveling east at Kansas City, and when they turn onto smaller highways, avoiding the signs for Highway 70 and Lawrence, Cas doesn’t say anything. He does wonder, though, how many times in the thousands and thousands of miles that Dean and his brother had traveled, they’d taken a longer route just to avoid their hometown.

They make it as far as Wichita before Dean wordlessly calls it a night by pulling into the next cheap-looking motel they pass. Miraculously, the heater actually works, and when Dean orders Chinese take-out, Cas decides it’s not too bad of a night. They watch TV while they’re eating, and Cas magnanimously lets Dean take control of the remote. Dean, it turns out, is incapable of watching a show without commenting on it, even when he’s flipping through channels every few minutes. That, or he just feels like it’s his responsibility to educate Cas about the intricacies of pop culture.

Still, Cas can’t shake the feeling that something’s off.

“Is everything alright?” he asks finally. 

Dean freezes with a spring roll halfway to his mouth. “What? Why?”

Cas shrugs. “You’ve just been in such a good mood today, and after last night—”

“You’re worried because I’m in a good mood? Wow, that really says a lot about the last couple of years we’ve known each other, doesn’t it?” Dean’s sharp laugh is more than a little bitter and Cas’ stomach sinks. He hadn’t meant it like that and he’s fairly sure Dean knows it, too.

“Just stop it.” It comes out a little harsher than Cas had intended and he mentally winces. “Sorry, just please, talk to me.”

“There’s nothing wrong,” Dean says, and Cas would brush it off as denial except that his words are careful, hesitant, like he’s scared of letting them out. “It’s just, I learned a long time ago what this is like. Sam’s gone, and whatever I can do, it’s not gonna be soon enough. And I do—” He swallows, then twitches his shoulders upwards helplessly. “I get so focused on ‘rescue Sammy’ that I make stupid mistakes. I can’t afford to do that now.”

 “That sounds surprisingly well-adjusted.”

Dean smiles weakly. “Well, I’ve got to start sometime, don’t I? And we’re close, I know it. Those sons of bitches don’t know how close we are. This time, we’ll be able to get the jump on them.”

Cas falls asleep not long after that. When he wakes up, there’s a split second of panic as he tries to orient. It’s still dark outside, but Dean had fallen asleep with the TV on and its flickering light casts odd shadows across their beds. Cas’ heart is still pounding from whatever had woken him up, but the motel room is quiet. Dean must have muted the TV when Cas fell asleep.

Then Dean moans, or sobs, really, and shifts fretfully. Cas has heard that noise before, back when he first pulled Dean out of Hell and he hadn’t started to drown out the nightmares with alcohol yet.

Cas slips out of bed and closes the distance between them. “Dean?” He hesitates before reaching for his shoulder—he’s not sure if Dean will react like he had when Cas had found him in the apartment building, and he doesn’t want to get punched again. “Dean!”

Dean’s eyes open and he flinches away from Cas. “What—” He’s out of breath, like he’s been running, and his eyes are a little too bright, even in the dim light. “What’s wrong?”

“You were dreaming. It didn’t sound pleasant.”

Dean pulls himself up and settles his back against the headboard. “I had another vision—dream—whatever,” he says, and Cas waits, because it’s impossible that this is good news. “I saw Sam. They’re—they’re torturing him. I think they’re trying to get him to join them, I don’t know.”

“Did you see anything else? Anything that could lead us to them?”

Dean shakes his head.

Cas sinks onto the edge of the bed. “We’ll find him, Dean, I promise.”

Dean’s still breathing hard, body shaking with each ragged inhale and exhale. They’re only a few inches away, but they’re like magnets with the same charge, the same force that could pull them together forming a barrier between them. For a second, Cas wonders what would happen if he tries to breach the space, if he pulls Dean against his chest and holds him until Dean’s panic fades. Then Dean’s moving, pulling away from Cas and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Cas stands quickly.

“We need to get moving,” Dean says, throwing Cas’ over-shirt at him. Cas can’t argue with that and they pack the car in silence.

They’re on the road in half an hour, stopping on the outskirts of town to gas up and caffeinate. Cas stays by the Impala while Dean goes into the store. He waits for the _click_ of the pump, his breath freezing in the air, and tries to figure out how long it’ll take to get to New Mexico. There’s no guarantee they’ll even find Sam once they get there, and Cas isn’t sure what their next step will be if the demons have already moved on. The assembled forces of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory couldn’t force Dean to give up the hunt for his brother.

The only question is how much Dean will self-destruct in the process. Cas would sacrifice himself in a second if it could mean saving Sam, but he can’t lose Dean.

“Everything okay?”

Cas jumps, realizing that the pump had stopped a long time ago, and that Dean’s looking at him oddly, two cheap Styrofoam cups of coffee in his hands. Cas nods, hooking up the pump as quickly as he can, cold fingers fumbling when he tries to replace the gas cap.

Once they’re on the highway, Dean glances over at Cas. “So it looks like we can get there by mid-morning, if we push it.”

“Good.” Cas cups his hands around his coffee, letting the warmth sink into his skin. “Dean—” He breaks off, trying to find the right way to form his thoughts. Learning how to say things in the least painful way is more difficult than he expected. It was something he’d only rarely thought about as an angel, but now, especially with Dean, it seems incredibly important. “Sam is strong. Whatever the demons want from him, he’ll be able to resist.”

“Let’s hope you’re right.” Dean’s watching the road, eyes fixed somewhere at the edge of the yellow pools of light cast by the Impala’s headlights. There’s an edge of something unpleasant in his voice that sounds dangerously close to skepticism.

Cas could tell him that he _knows_ he’s right, that he’s seen all the things Sam suffered in the Cage, and that not even centuries of torture broke him, but he doesn’t. If Dean doesn’t already know the details then it’s not Cas’ place to share them. He frowns and settles for sending up an unheard prayer that they find Sam before time proves either of them right.

Behind them, the sky is starting to lighten, dark blue shot with cotton candy pink, but ahead the road is still dark. Cas guesses it will be for a while.

* * *

They stop in Taos to check for directions. The air is thinner here and the change in pressure leaves Cas a little light-headed. The irony that he apparently has trouble with high elevations isn’t lost on him, but he keeps it to himself. Dean’s got a local map they picked up at the visitor center spread over the steering wheel and the sharp focus in his eyes that usually accompanies the death of something evil.

Their destination is another old farmhouse, this time on an abandoned horse ranch that’s far enough out that any strange activity should go unreported. Luckily for them, it hadn’t. The ranch’s nearest neighbor had called the police the day before, saying she heard strange noises in the night and that there was an odd smell when she drove by. The police had sent a car by, apparently finding nothing, but Cas knows there are a dozen ways the demons could hide themselves from prying eyes. It’s not much, but it is in the center of the demonic omens Cas found, and it’s the only lead they have.

There’s no snow, but the ground is frozen, making the thud of their footsteps seem unusually loud. Dean had been forced to leave the Impala outside the locked gate at the main road, but the walk up to the house doesn’t take too long.

When they get within sight of the house, Cas freezes. There’s a thin blue line of smoke floating up from the chimney and an old truck parked out front. Beside him, Dean mutters a quiet curse and Cas silently agrees. For all that he hoped they’d find Sam, he hadn’t really expected anyone to actually be here.

“What do we do now?” he says, voice low.

“Well, we can’t just go in shooting,” Dean says. “They could be demons, they could just be squatters, no way to tell.” He reaches into his jacket, pulling out a flask. “You ready?”

“Of course.” Cas takes a deep breath. The cold burns his throat, but it’s steadying. His hand finds the comforting weight of the sword stowed in his jacket.

The porch creaks loudly under their feet. Dean raises his eyebrows at Cas and knocks on the front door, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the cold air. The door opens almost immediately and, for a second, Cas thinks there’s no one there. Then he looks down.

“Hello?” It’s a little boy, maybe six or seven years old, with wild hair and an Iron Man t-shirt.

Dean hesitates, then bends down a little. “Hi, are your parents home? We’re with the police.”

The boy gives him a dubious look, but yells, “Mom!” over his shoulder anyway.

A woman appears a second later. She’s older, with steel-gray hair pulled into a messy bun, and she smiles when she sees them. “Come on in.” She nudges the boy out of the way and pulls the door open wider.

For a second, Dean’s eyes meet Cas,’ then he’s smiling broadly at the woman and stepping through the door. Cas takes a moment to acknowledge that this is probably one of the stupidest things he’s ever done as a human, and follows him.

The door slams shut behind them in a way that Cas is truly hoping isn’t ominous. Inside, it’s dark, most of the light coming from the massive fireplace on the far wall. The walls are lined with trophies, the glassy eyes of elk and mountain lions staring down at them, and Cas suppresses a shudder.

“We’ve been expecting you for a while,” the woman says, and the boy smiles, eyes flashing black.

_Fuck._

“Just tell us where my brother is,” Dean growls, enough menace in his voice that the hairs at the back of Cas’ neck prickle and the demons lose a little of the smugness on their faces. “You know who we are, you know what we can do to you. Do you really want to cross me?”

The woman smiles and flicks her wrist. Dean’s thrown across the room, hitting the wall by the fireplace with a dull thud. She takes a few steps towards him, clenching her outstretched hand into a fist, and Dean’s punched-out breath tells Cas as much as a scream would have.

“Yes, the great Dean Winchester. See, the thing I always heard was how very fragile you are. Torture your brother, hurt your angel—it’s just a matter of finding your buttons, and there’s so very many of them. That’s the reason you broke so easily in Hell.” She smiles, cocking her head at him. “Oh don’t worry, you’ll see your brother again. Of course, by then it’ll be too late. There’s no way to tell if he’ll even be anything you’d recognize as your blood.”

Dean moans again, but Cas can’t afford to let himself get distracted. The demons are barely paying attention to him as they gloat over Dean, possibly assuming that Cas is the lesser threat. They’re probably right, but Cas has been underestimated for most of his very long life, and most of those that have doubted him are now dead. He intends to add these demons to that list.

He adjusts his grip on the angel sword and lunges, aiming for the female demon’s heart. She turns, just a fraction too slow, and the blade catches in her blouse, scraping along her ribs. She shrieks, louder and higher-pitched that any human lungs can manage, making the windows shudder in their frames.

It’s the boy that turns on him. Cas hits the wall hard and stays pinned to the wood. He’d lost his hold on the sword on impact and it skitters across the floor, finally resting far out of his or Dean’s reach.

“You hurt my mommy,” the boy says. His voice doesn’t seem natural, too singsong and exaggerated, like the demon has forgotten what a real child sounds like.

It hurts to talk past the weight on his chest, but Cas pushes past it. If they’re focused on him, then maybe Dean will have a chance to act. “We both know she’s not your mother.”

“She’s this useless sack of meat’s mother.” The boy shrugs. “Close enough.” He smirks at Cas, and raises his hand. Cas doesn’t have time to brace himself against the pain, but it doesn’t matter. He couldn’t have prepared himself even if he had. He knows it’s not real, that it’s just an echo of Hellfire that the demon has conjured, but it still tears through him, overriding every other thought. Dimly, he hears someone scream, but he doesn’t realize it’s him until the demons start to laugh.

“So this is what happens to an angel when you take out all the important bits,” the woman’s saying, but Cas can barely hear her past the roaring in his ears. The pain isn’t coming from any one place in his body—if it had, he’d have a chance to compartmentalize, shove it to the back of his mind and keep trying to fight—but it’s enveloping him, burning across his skin and through his bones.

Just when Cas’ vision is staring to darken around the edges, a voice breaks through the pain.

“ _Exorcizamus te—”_ it’s saying, and somehow, impossibly, it’s _Sam_ , his voice weak but unmistakably him. Sam’s here. He’s _alive_. It’s enough to make Cas fight against the demons’ hold again, and then he’s free, the agony suddenly stopping as the demons’ attention turns to Sam and his steady, precise exorcism. He falls to the ground, his muscles still weak from the pain, and tries to remember how to breathe. In the distance, the exorcism rolls over him, mixed with the demon’s screams, but for now he’s happy to just lie here.

Then Dean cries out and Cas forces himself to focus. The exorcism is still going, draining the demons’ powers. The boy is on the ground, hands over his ears as if he’ll be safe from the words if he can’t hear them. The woman hasn’t given up yet. Dean’s still sprawled by the fireplace, and she’s straddling him, hands crushing his windpipe. There’s no sign of Sam.

Cas staggers to his feet and barrels at her. He manages a halfway decent tackle, knocking her off of Dean, but she’s still stronger than him, and rolls them until she’s on top, holding him down. Cas grabs for her wrists, but she bats his hand out of the way and wraps her fingers around his throat. He gasps for air, searching the floor around them for something, anything, that he could use as a weapon, but only finds empty air.

It’s Sam who saves him. The exorcism finishes with a forceful, “ _Audi nos_!” and the demon screams. Cas watches, dazed, as the black smoke streams up through the ceiling. The woman crumples, falling half-off of Cas onto the floor. He’s not sure if she’s survived.

“Cas?” Dean’s voice is shaky, but he’s alive. Cas basks in that for a second. “Cas? Dammit, Cas, are you okay?”

“I’m unharmed,” Cas manages. His skin still feels raw, but there’s no physical damage. He edges out from under the woman, trying to ease her gently onto the floor.

“Is she breathing?” Dean’s pulled himself up against the bricks of the fireplace. He’s pale, but Cas can’t tell if he’s injured or not.

Cas presses shaking fingers to her throat and breathes until he’s steady enough to feel for a pulse. “Barely.” He’d have thought she was dead, but he’s fairly sure there’s still a thready beat under his fingers.

“Can you check the kid?”

The boy’s breathing is stronger, and for the first time, Cas thinks that maybe both hosts might survive. “Should we take them to a hospital?”

Dean shakes his head, then winces. “We need to get out of here. Call 911, tell them there was, I dunno, a burglary, anything.”

Cas is already feeling for his phone. “Where’s Sam?”

Dean closes his eyes. “It was just a recording.” He holds up his own phone. “About a year before you came along, we took out a mess of demons by broadcasting an exorcism through the PA system, and Sam thought it might come in handy again sometime.” He slides the phone back into his pocket. “He wanted to be sure I was prepared.”

A recording. That explained the odd tinny quality that Cas had attributed to weakness. There’s a voice on the other end of the line, and he manages something, he’s not even sure what, except that he knows he was able to get in the address and that it was urgent. He gives what he’s fairly sure is the fake name Dean had given the police when they’d first got to town, then hangs up.

“Do you need a hand?”

Dean is still sitting hunched by the fireplace, holding his shoulder. “Yeah,” he says, “that might be good.”

Cas gets an arm around Dean’s chest and pulls him up, steadying himself with his other hand. Dean hisses and grabs at Cas’ shirt. Dean’s hand is stained red, and Cas swallows hard.

“I’ve got you, Dean.”

The walk back to the car, which had been bracing before, now feels like a marathon. Dean can walk, or that’s what he keeps insisting, but when Cas tries to let him stand on his own, he stumbles on the first step, almost falling to the hard ground. Somehow, they make it to the Impala before the ambulance arrives. Dean collapses into the passenger’s seat and Cas slides in next to him, fumbling the key into the ignition.

“Do you need medical attention?” He thinks Dean would be honest with him—after all he’s been injured so many times that he probably has a good grasp of what he can fix on his own—but he’s also prepared to knock Dean out and drag him to a hospital if he needs to.

Dean shakes his head. “Let’s just get out of here.”

Cas pulls out onto the highway, the tires kicking up dust. In the distance, there’s the wail of sirens somewhere behind them. He doesn't look back.

He drives faster than he generally likes, but Dean's face is still ashy-pale and he's keeping up a steady stream of curses under his breath.

"How badly are you injured?"

Dean shifts, then swears a little louder. "I think I hit one of those trophies. Something with horns. It feels like my back might have been kinda torn up."

Cas' jaw tightens. "Tell me the truth, Dean, do you need a doctor?"

"Can you handle sewing me up?"

"If that's what you need me to do." The prospect of stitching Dean back together like a broken doll is uninviting, but Cas hasn't yet found the limits of what he'll do for Dean. A few stitches should be nothing.

"Then I'll be fine. We should stop somewhere, get bandages, booze."

They reach the intersection with the highway and Cas turns north. Dean arches his back slightly and Cas glances over at him. "Shit," Dean says, "I'm bleeding all over the seat."

"I'm sure it's not the first blood it's seen."

"Yeah, but do you know how hard it is to get blood out of leather? It's a pain in the ass, that's what it is."

Before Cas can stop him, Dean pulls an old towel out from under his seat, and slips it behind his back. Cas just hopes the pressure will be enough to stem the bleeding until he finds somewhere they can stop. Dean goes quiet after that, his forehead leaning against the glass, and every few minutes Cas sends him a worried look that goes unanswered.

Returning to Taos doesn’t seem like a good idea, not with the police probably looking for whoever had called in the tip about the ranch house, so Cas keeps driving They should reach Colorado soon, but he isn't sure if that'll be soon enough. Around them the countryside is quiet and empty.

The next town they come to has a small drug store and a practically empty motel. Somehow, Dean manages to pull himself into something resembling normality when they reach the motel and Cas leaves him in the warmth of the lobby while he gets their bags out of the car. He gets Dean into a room, then drives the three blocks to the drug store. The cold is biting and, even with the heater going full-force, Cas' face is starting to feel numb by the time he gets back to the motel.

While Cas was gone, Dean had peeled his t-shirt off and flopped face- down onto the bed. He'd dampened a hand-towel and laid it over the wound, and when Cas gets back, he's got a bottle of whiskey.

"Did you find everything?" Dean doesn't lift his head.

"I believe I was able to locate what you required." Cas carefully lays out the contents of his shopping bags—sterilized bandages, more whiskey, a sewing kit, dental floss, and a lighter. He shrugs out of his coat, grateful for the heating in the room.

"Okay, I'll walk you through this." Dean lifts his head enough to throw back another mouthful of alcohol.

Cas is only shaking a little as he takes off his over shirt, rolling the sleeves of his undershirt up to his elbows, and washes his hands, lathering up his arms. Using tweezers, he dips one of the sewing needles in the liquor and holds it into the lighter flame. Threading it with the floss takes a few tries, but eventually the needle is ready.

He's holding his breath when he pulls back the towel. Underneath, it's not the deep puncture wound he'd feared. Instead, a flap of skin about four inches long has been neatly flayed from Dean's upper back. Cas swallows hard.

"Have—have you seen what it looks like?"

"You just need to clean it out and sew it back down," Dean says, and his words are starting to sound a little slurred. Good.

It takes Cas a few long minutes to clean out the wound. Finally, the silence, broken only by Dean’s soft grunts of pain, is too much.

“I thought we’d found Sam,” Cas says, before he’s really aware of what’s coming out. “Back at the house.”

There’s a long pause. Dean takes another swig of whiskey. “Sorry about that. He recorded that exorcism for me ages ago, but I’ve never had a chance to use it. Guess I’m not usually as off my game as I’ve been.” He snorts. “Also, most times demons don’t hold still enough for a whole exorcism when they’re not in a trap. We’re lucky you were so much fun to torture.”

_Yes, very lucky_. Cas finishes cleaning the gash and picks up the needle. This is the part he had been dreading.

“You’ll be fine, man,” Dean says, and he sounds almost soothing. He must have realized Cas had finished the first step. “Sammy and me were sewing each other up since we were little. It’s a piece of cake.”

“I’m sure it is.” Cas carefully tips some of the new liquor he’d bought out onto the wound and Dean hisses. “My apologies.”

“Let’s just finish this.” Dean’s talking through gritted teeth. He’s barely made any noise, even with Cas’ inexpert touch, but he’s obviously getting tired. Cas doesn’t blame him.

He makes the first stich, wincing at the feel of the needle through flesh. He can do this. He has to, for Dean.

“Tell me about your life,” Dean says, and there’s a ragged edge in his voice that Cas doesn’t like. “You’ve barely said anything.”

“There’s not much to tell.” Two stiches down now, and there’s still the whole length of the torn skin to go.

“Just talk about whatever. What kind of coffee do you like? Did you know your neighbors? Anything.”

It’s hard to think of anything to say at first, but as he makes one careful stitch after another, the words and actions become easier. By the time he ties off the thread, he’s fairly sure he’s given Dean biographies of every person he’s encountered more than twice, the color of the carpet in his apartment, and his television schedule, which was built more around when he was home than what programs he actually enjoyed.

“Dean, I need you to sit up.”

Dean tries to obey, but he seems to have limited control over his limbs, and Cas has to help pull him into a sit. He sags against Cas as he wraps bandages around his torso and doesn’t appear to want to lie back down when Cas is done.

“I dunno, what that demon said about Sam…” Dean’s voice is barely more than a whisper. He tilts his head back against Cas’ shoulder, his mouth inches from Cas’ ear.

“Demons lie, that’s what you’ve always said.” Cas keeps his voice low as well. He’s not exactly comfortable like this, sitting awkwardly on the edge of the bed with all of Dean’s weight threatening to push him to the floor, but the closeness to Dean is amazing. He doesn’t even mind the alcohol on Dean’s breath.

“Yeah. We’ll see.”

Cas sighs. “You should go to bed now.” He carefully pushes Dean away from him and back down onto the comforter.

Dean groans, but buries his face in the pillow anyway. Cas finishes cleaning up the mess he’s made with his home surgery. Hopefully they’ll be long gone before the maid finds the bloody towel in the trash. It’s only after the last of the medical supplies are cleared away that he notices the obvious—the room only has the one bed.

“I’m fairly sure I asked for a double,” he says.

Dean mumbles something incoherent, then lifts his head up. “Who cares? It’s done, just get your ass over here and turn the light off.”

“I’ll—I’ll be right back.”

Cas grabs his toothbrush out of his duffle bag and escapes to the bathroom. He leans against the sink, the cheap ceramic cool under his hands. He doesn’t understand Dean. He’s sure he’d gotten a room with two beds at check in, he’d left Dean for a few minutes while he parked the car, and now they’ve got _this_. While he can come up with several other explanations, the most rational, when coupled with Dean’s attitude, is that Dean wants them to share a bed.

He exhales and straightens, squeezing out the toothpaste with a little more precision than he usually needs. If Dean would just reject him outright, Cas could manage it. He’d be hurt, well, actually it would probably be more like his world collapsing around him, but he’d live. It’s the indecision that’s killing him now.

It’s not like this push and pull from Dean is new. He’s been doing it for almost as long as they’ve known each other, ever since, perhaps unintentionally, Dean had stumbled on what a powerful motivating factor their friendship was. He called Cas in when he needed him, and when things grew too intimate between them, he’d pushed him away. Cas is fairly sure that something had shifted between them in the time Dean thought Cas was dead. They hadn’t had much time before Sucrocorp, and Cas is the first to admit he hadn’t exactly been in his right mind at the time, but it had felt different, like they were close to being back on equal footing. Now that he’s human, though, that adds a whole other layer to the mess.

He turns off the bathroom light, and pads across the floor to the bed. Dean’s still stretched out on his stomach, eyes closed, his breathing deep and even. Cas slides in next to him as close to the opposite side of the bed as he can get. Dean mutters something into his pillow and shifts a little more towards his side of the bed, and Cas edges towards the middle enough that he probably won’t fall out of bed in the middle of the night. It’s actually fairly comfortable, and the adrenaline of the last few hours is wearing out quickly. He switches off the bed stand light and almost immediately falls asleep.

Cas is being suffocated. There’s a heavy weight on his chest pinning him to the bed and he startles awake before his brain can catch up with his reflexes.

To his left, Dean groans, and Cas freezes. The pressure across his chest is an arm, an arm that is still very much attached to the man who is somehow still asleep next to him. At some point during the night, he’d moved towards the center of the bed until they were hip to hip and thrown one arm over Cas to pull him even closer.

It’s tempting to just stay in bed. Dean is warm against him, and Cas has a suspicion they’re much closer together than they would have been if Dean hadn’t been in pain, not to mention drunk on cheap whiskey and endorphins. Still, that’s all the more reason to get up. The last thing Cas wants to do is take advantage of a weakened Dean, even when the contact is almost entirely innocent.

He eases out from under Dean’s arm and the blankets. It’s cold, again, but Cas guesses it probably will be for another four or five months. He starts coffee, wincing at the gurgle of the machine. Sam’s laptop is blinking accusingly at him from their bags, but looking for more fruitless demon omens doesn’t seem appealing. He sips at his coffee and waits for Dean to wake up.

It takes three cups for Dean to stir. Cas almost falls asleep again in his chair, but he jerks awake when Dean sits, pushing himself up onto his elbows.

“Dude, I thought we’d lose the whole watching me sleep thing now that you’re not an angel. You need sleep too, you know.”

“I did sleep.” Cas frowns. “And I wasn’t watching. I just didn’t want to wake you.”

Dean snorts. “Yeah, right.” He tries to pull himself into a more conventional sitting position, but he’s barely moved before he’s wincing.

“How’s your back?” Cas stands quickly, almost knocking over the dregs of his coffee. It’s easy to reach out for Dean, steadying him and supporting more of his weight than Cas had expected. Clearly, even the night’s sleep hadn’t done much for Dean’s strength.

“It hurts like a son of a bitch, but I’ll survive.” Dean grimaces, but lets Cas stabilize him with one hand, while carefully stacking pillows behind him with the other.

“Try that.”

Dean leans back and makes a face that isn’t entirely disapproving. “Is there any new word on where they might be keeping Sam, or why they want him?”

Cas shakes his head. “I didn’t look for omens. It seemed pointless, given that everything we’ve done has played into the demons’ hands.”

“Come on, Cas, where’s that can-do attitude?”

“I did have an idea. You’re not going to like it.”

Dean doesn’t.

* * *

“Seriously, your idea is _Crowley_?”

“You may have noticed that we’re running a little low on options. We don’t exactly have a lot people to turn to.”

Dean rubs his hand over his face. “What about Kevin?”

Cas shakes his head. “Kevin’s purpose as a prophet was to decode the tablet. He doesn’t have the same insight into your and Sam’s life that Chuck had. Besides—” He sinks heavily onto the edge of the bed. “—Kevin had a chance to escape from this life and, to the best of my knowledge, he took it. It would be cruel to drag him back in now.”

“But Crowley? Come on, there’s got to be someone else, anyone else.”

“If anyone knows what the demons are planning, it would be him.”

“Yeah, for all we know, he could be the one planning it!”

As points go, it’s a decent one. Still, Cas likes to think that he’d grown to know Crowley rather well, and this just doesn’t feel like his work. The dramatic steps to whatever the demons are planning and the emotional torture could be him—he always did like to gamble—but the orchestration doesn’t feel smooth enough. Crowley’s made himself successful by using very little power to great effect—this is more like lots of power used clumsily. Still, it’s probably safer to not trust the demon any more than they have to.

“If he is, then we’ll be one step closer to finding Sam. I take it you’ll be able to contain and interrogate him if his demons are responsible?”

Dean smiles. “Oh yeah. I can do that.”

They leave the motel early, Cas packing the car while Dean makes abortive fluttering motions and tries to help without actually doing much. It’s obvious that Dean’s trying to hide that he’s in pain, but he’s failing miserably. That he lets Cas carry his duffle bag out without protest is probably as clear a sign as Cas can get.

Still, when Cas heads for the driver’s door, Dean cuts him off with a growled, “I’m not on my damn deathbed.” Cas doesn’t fight him. Frankly, he feels a little privileged that he’s driven the Impala as much as he has, and there’s no doubt that driving makes Dean feel better.

They head north, taking the quiet back roads towards the Colorado border. It’s slow going. A light dusting of snow had fallen in the night, and there were no plows on the roads they’re taking. It’s isolated, desolate, and perfect for summoning the ruler of Hell.

It still takes several hours of searching before Dean spots a promising abandoned barn that looks suitable. After pulling around behind it, Dean digs through the trunk looking for spray paint while Cas pries the bottom of the barn door free from the frozen earth.

Dean’s face is pale when he joins him, and Cas decides it’s probably best if he just ignores Dean’s winces. He asked once during the drive if Dean’s back was hurting, and all he got was a blatant lie and a cold shoulder. If Dean wants to be a willful idiot, then Cas will leave him to suffer. It isn’t easy, but it looks like the only option he has.

He remembers a time when there were other options, when he could stop Dean’s pain and probably find his brother in the space of a heartbeat, and hastily distracts himself with painting devil’s traps in front of the door. This, at least, he can still do.

Even though Dean’s moving slowly, it doesn’t take long to demon-proof the barn. Dean’s pale by the time he finishes, but his voice and hands are steady as he works the summoning. Cas stands with his back against Dean’s, gripping the angelic blade tightly.

What feels like a long time passes, and nothing happens. Cas’ breath clouds the air, but his hands are slippery on the metal of the sword’s hilt. Behind him, Dean is breathing shallowly. The unpredictability of a demonic summoning is nerve-wracking and Cas just hopes that they haven’t made a terrible miscalculation.

“Well, if it isn’t two-thirds of my favorite trio, all nicely returned from the dead, and wherever the Hell you’ve been hiding, Cas.”

Cas turns quickly. Crowley is leaning against a support beam a safe distance from Dean and Cas, hands in his pockets.

“You must have known we’d be coming for you sooner or later.” Dean smirks, and there’s no sign of the pain and weariness in his face that Cas had seen just a few minutes before. Sometimes, he forgets what a good actor Dean can be.

“But wait—” Crowley holds up a finger. “—Something’s missing here. Have you lost your moose?”

“That’s actually what we want to talk to you about.” Dean takes an easy step towards him, and Crowley’s eyes flick down to Ruby’s knife in his hand. For a second, Cas thinks he almost looks worried, but then his collected mask slides back into place. “Come on, you can tell me, were you the one that brought back me and Sam?”

Crowley scoffs. “What, you think I’d be idiotic enough to resurrect you two chuckleheads?”

“So you’re telling me you don’t know anything about these demons’ plans?” Dean says.

“I honestly have no idea what you’re blathering about.” Crowley sounds genuinely confused, and as far as Cas can tell, he’s being truthful. Of course, his ability to read the demon has already been proven less effective than he’d hoped.

Dean glances over at Cas, and he half-shrugs. Dean’s guess is as good as his right now.

“Sam’s been captured by a group of demons,” Dean says. “What do you know about it?”

“About the fate of your Sasquatch of a brother? Absolutely nothing.”

Dean takes another step towards him, but Crowley looks supremely unimpressed.

“But, if you ask nicely, I might know something about recent activity outside of my loyal soldiers. My powerbase is not as—solid—as I’d like. There are still a few demons who support the old regime.”

“And they’re planning something?” Dean’s frowning.

Crowley shrugs. “They could be. You know demons. We’re always scheming about something. I could look into it, but it could be dangerous. You still haven’t offered anything that might make your little dramas worth my time.”

“Then what the Hell do you want?”

Cas moves forwards until he’s level with Dean, not taking his eyes off of Crowley. “Be careful. Any deal you make with him will certainly not be to your advantage.”

“So the littlest angel still speaks after all. There I was thinking you’d given up your voice to be a real human.”

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten all that you’ve done,” Cas says. “You abandoned us to the Leviathan.”

“And I lost both the prophet and that skank Meg. Hardly the happiest ending for me, was it?”

Cas still isn’t convinced that Crowley’s sudden arrival at Sucrocorp and equally rapid departure were merely unexpected helpfulness followed by cowardice. With Dick Roman dead, Cas has no way of proving it, but he’s fairly sure that Crowley had decided that it wasn’t worth it working with the Winchesters after all and betrayed them to Roman. If it’s true, then he’s responsible for Sam and Dean’s deaths, and it burns to be in the same space as him and be unable to exact vengeance. Still, as deep as Cas’ hate for Crowley runs, both boys are alive again, and if Crowley can keep them that way, then he’ll have to let the past go.

“What do you want in exchange for information?”

“Well, let’s get straight to it, then.” Crowley shrugs. “I promise, it won’t be a bother at all. I just want immunity. I help you find Moose and it’ll be the end of our dealings. You stay away from me, and I’ll do my best to keep my demons away from you. Everyone wins.”

Dean exhales and turns to Cas. “What do you think?” He keeps his voice low, even though they both know that Crowley can still hear him. It’s the principal of the thing.

Cas closes his eyes, breathing through the conflicting storm of emotions. He already knows what Dean wants to do and that asking him is just a formality. He’s touched that Dean would even make that effort, but Dean’s mind is already set. He’s already made far worse deals than this.

He nods.

Crowley’s smiling when Cas turns back to him. In the end, he’s won this game and he knows it. “Lovely. It’s been a pleasure working with you.” He turns away, then glances back over his shoulder at them. “And by the way, stop poking your nose into it. It’s a delicate situation, and the last thing I need is you dunces buggering it up. Take a vacation. I recommend someplace warm. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you informed.”

“Wait!” Dean sheathes his knife and jogs up to him. “You’re king of Hell. You’ve got to have a bead on where souls go, don’t you?”

“Seriously? Don’t you realize I’ve got better things to do than play St. Peter at the fiery gates?”

“Me and Sammy. Do you know where we were? Up or down?” There’s an edge of desperation in Dean’s voice, and Cas tenses.

Crowley shakes his head. “You really do have no idea how it works, do you? Frankly, I wouldn’t want you or your brother within my kingdom’s walls, but it’s not up to me. With all you’ve done, where do you think you’d end up? And let’s not even get started on your brother.” His smile is infinitely condescending. “Still, you don’t need to worry about that now. Just focus on keeping Moose from turning into the next monster you’ll have to hunt—again—and making sure your little ex-angel over there stays out of trouble.”

Cas blinks and Crowley’s gone. Dean’s still standing frozen in the center of the barn, and barely reacts when Cas joins him.

“The bastard knows more than he’s saying,” Dean says, and it’s clear he’s trying to pretend he isn’t scared out of his wits. “Why else would he say that about Sammy?”

“We should go,” Cas says, and gently pulls on Dean’s arm. “Crowley knows where are, and I don’t think we should stay exposed. We need to move, go somewhere unexpected.”

“Good plan.” Dean’s moving slowly, and Cas doesn’t think it’s all from the pain in his back.

“You shouldn’t listen to him. Crowley knows what you fear, and he’ll use that to his advantage. He doesn’t know anything about what happened to you and Sam when you were dead.”

“Yeah, I know. He was talking bullshit, just like he always does.”

They clean up the remains from the summoning, and leave the barn behind them. They head east, Dean’s hands clenched on the steering wheel.

“Where are we heading?” Cas asks, voice raised a little to be heard over the AC/DC blasting from the radio.

Dean shrugs, then winces. “Wherever the Hell this road goes. Right now, I don’t fucking care.”

“You’re going to stop the hunt?”

“I don’t know what else we can do. Crowley has a point—so far all we’ve done is walk into traps and get farther and farther away from Sam. The damn visions they’re sending are worth squat and they’re probably setting up the omens deliberately.” His fingers tap a staccato dance against the leather. “We’ll hole up for a few days, regroup, and if Crowley doesn’t know where Sam is by then, we’ll go to Plan B.”

“Which is?”

“Start nabbing all the demons we can find and hope one of them knows something.”

For a long time, the music is the only sound in the car.

They drive for the rest of the day, stopping only to refuel and cobble together lunch from whatever Cas manages to find in the convenience store. Dean’s back must be excruciating by now and Cas wants to get a look at his bandages. Night falls, but Dean keeps driving until they cross the border back into Kansas.

It’s late by the time they pull up into a motel, and Dean lets Cas get the room. The young woman behind the desk looks barely half-awake and she’s mumbling so badly that he almost misses the room number.

The room smells faintly of mildew when Dean opens the door, but Cas doesn’t even care. He pulls off his shoes and falls onto the bed closest to the door.

“Cas?” Dean’s voice is tight, and Cas somehow summons the energy to lift his head. “I know you’re human now and need sleep and all, but I really need you to check my back.”

Cas exhales roughly. “Of course, Dean, I’m sorry.” He pushes himself off the bed and fishes the first aid kit out of Dean’s duffle bag while Dean pulls off his t-shirt. Underneath the bandage, the wound looks better than Cas had expected. He cleans and re-bandages it. Dean almost gasps when Cas’ hands brush his chest as he wraps the gauze around Dean’s torso, probably a reaction to the coldness of Cas’ hands.

When Cas is finished, he leaves Dean to pull his shirt back on, and goes into the bathroom to change. Dean’s still sitting up in bed when he comes out.

“Cas—”

He freezes, crouched by his bag. “Dean?”

“Look, I really don’t know how to say this. If I’m completely out of line here, just tell me and I swear I’ll never mention it again.”

Cas stands and walks over to the bed next to Dean’s. He has a feeling he’ll want to be sitting for this.

“Dean, you know you can tell me anything.”

“The other night—you know, when I went out and got tanked?” He raises his eyebrows at Cas and grimaces. “I, uh, I kinda forgot what happened that night the next morning, but it’s sort of starting to come back to me.”

This is it, then. Dean remembers the kiss, remembers that Cas encouraged him, took advantage of him when he was drunk out of his mind. Cas had still, perhaps foolishly, been hoping that if they succeeded in rescuing Sam, they’d stay together afterwards and be a team—a family—the way they’d been during the Apocalypse. While Cas would never admit it, he’s missed that. He’s missed the sense of purpose, the sense of belonging. He’s missed _Dean._

There’s no chance of that now, though.

“Dean, my actions that night were reprehensible. You were intoxicated, and I—” It comes out in a tumble Cas isn’t sure Dean even understands.

Dean blinks. He frowns at Cas, then blinks again. “Dude, I _wanted_ you to kiss me back. I may have been smashed, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t how I felt. I just didn’t want it to be something you didn’t want. I don’t want to, I dunno, _taint_ you.”

“Taint me?” Cas is fairly sure he lost the thread of this conversation a while back. It’s certainly not going the direction he’d imagined it playing out. “How could you possibly do that?”

Dean shifts uncomfortably. “You know. You’re an angel. I’ve been to Hell, and it wasn’t for the climate. Aren’t sex, lust—all those messy human things—beneath you? _Wrong_?”

Cas can name a dozen angels he’d known that hadn’t considered sex beneath them or wrong, Gabriel and Balthazar heading the list, but that’s not the point, or at least not the point Dean’s trying to make. It’s odd; Dean seems to be able to remember that he’s no longer an angel when it comes to the little things like eating and sleeping, but Cas is starting to wonder how deeply Dean has actually processed the change. Perhaps he’ll always think of Cas as an angel, something untouchable and vast. Cas is neither of those things now.

“Dean, I’m human now. If I wish to engage in sexual relations with a willing partner, I have every right.”

Dean blinks again. “Just—just don’t call it ‘sexual relations.’ It makes you sound like a politician. And why would you want that? I mean, sex is awesome, but it gets messy and complicated, and eventually someone gets hurt, and when it’s you, it’s fuckin’ painful.”

“Yet you find it worth it.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a masochist.”

Cas can’t really think of anything to say to that. He can’t spend the rest of his life trying to convince Dean that he’s something special, that he’s worth every pain that Cas might experience—that he’s always been. He drops his eyes and studies the tasteless pattern of the comforter.

“Cas.” Dean says again, and this time he sounds a little desperate. Cas looks up, and Dean’s staring at him, eyes wide and pleading. His mouth is slightly open, and Cas unconsciously echoes the movement when Dean’s tongue darts out to wet his lips.

There are only a few feet between the beds, but it feels like an abyss as Cas carefully stands and moves towards Dean. Dean reaches for him, and their fingers twine as Dean pulls Cas onto the bed next to him. Cas’ heart is pounding, because this is insane. Just because he’s been wanting this for longer than he’d care to admit doesn’t make it a good idea. It’s taken a long time to rebuild the friendship he’d had with Dean, and if this destroys all their work—

Then he’s close enough to Dean that he can feel the warmth of Dean’s shallow breaths and smell the soap on his skin, and suddenly this feels like a very, very good idea. Dean’s lips are warm against his, and if he’d thought that first kiss had been good, it has nothing on this one. Dean’s confident and just pushy enough that Cas can melt into him and just let go.

He settles back against the pillows, and rolls Dean on top of him. Dean’s laugh is muffled by their kiss, but the sensation is enough to send another surge of heat to his already interested dick. His hands run down Dean’s back, careful to avoid the bandages, and pull him closer, until their bodies are almost flush.

Dean breaks the kiss first, but he stays a fraction of an inch away from Cas, and in the soft light from the bedside lamp, the flecks of gold in his eyes shine.

“Just—just tell me you want this,” Dean breathes, which Cas decides is stupid question. Their bodies are close enough that he can very clearly feel the heat of Dean’s erection against his hip, and he guesses his own is hardly less subtle.

“I want this,” Cas says, and his voice has gone even lower than normal, rough and broken. “I want you. I’ve wanted you for a very long time.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Dean says, and he sounds even more wrecked than Cas. “You know we can—we can stop if you need to. Just say the word.” He smirks. “I don’t want to overwhelm you with my sheer sexual magnetism, you being a virgin and all.”

Cas grinds his hips up against Dean’s and the smirk disappears as Dean moans. Dean pulls back, and Cas grabs for him, but his reflexes are dulled. Dean sits back on his heels, his knees bracketing Cas’ hips, and reaches for the hem of Cas’ t-shirt. “Can I?”

“Please.” Cas wriggles up and lets the shirt slide off over his head. Dean’s shirt follows quickly, and Cas is left with the wide expanse of Dean’s chest, bisected by the stark white of the bandage. It’s a reminder that Dean’s not at his full strength and that they need to be at least somewhat gentle. Cas hates it.

Dean’s staring down at him and he suddenly remembers that while he’s seen Dean’s naked form, albeit not in this context, Dean’s never seen him like this before. He shifts, for the first time feeling a little uncomfortable.

Dean drops back down onto his elbows, and though he ducks his head, Cas doesn’t miss his wince.

He lifts a hand to Dean’s shoulder, steadying him. “Are you alright? Do you need to stop?”

Dean smiles, but there’s still an edge of pain there. “Hey, I’ll be fine. Let’s just stay away from anything acrobatic.” He lowers his head again, and presses a hard kiss against where Cas’ jaw meets his neck. Cas gasps and throws his head back, arching up against Dean’s mouth, his fingers digging into Dean’s shoulder. “Anyway,” Dean whispers into his ear, “this is worth it.”

Cas’ hand slips a little lower, fingers pressing against the warmth of Dean’s bicep, and Dean starts, tensing under Cas’ hold.

“Is that alright?” Cas asks.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine.” Dean’s eyes are closed, and he’s panting a little. Cas frowns, then realizes why it feels familiar. _Oh_. He squeezes Dean’s arm, and reaches between their bodies, cupping Dean’s groin. Dean moans and pushes forwards into Cas’ hand, his head dropping to rest against Cas’ shoulder.

It’s awkward through the fabric and the angle feels wrong, but Dean seems fine with Cas’ attempts. He smooths his hand along Dean’s length, pressing in with the heel, and Dean swears against Cas’ neck.

“Wait.” Dean pulls away again, but this time, he slides down Cas’ body. “Not like that.” He catches his fingers in the waistband of Cas’ sweatpants and drags them and his underwear down over his hips, then shimmies out of his own pants. For a second, the air is uncomfortably cold against his dick, but then the heat of Dean’s hand replaces the chill, and Cas gasps.

Every touch is easy and relaxed, like Dean knows exactly what he’s doing. Cas has grown more familiar with the different ways his body can experience pleasure since he’s been human. A good meal, clothes that fit just right, a hot shower after a long day, the spreading warmth of his own hand against his flesh—none of it has felt like this.

Dean is all around him, every twist of his wrist and brush of his thumb across the head of Cas’ dick sending shocks of pleasure that are slowly destroying his higher functioning abilities. He bucks up into Dean’s fist, moaning Dean’s name until Dean stops him with a kiss, the press of his tongue into Cas’ mouth mirroring the movements of his hand.

Still, there’s the nagging feeling that Dean’s own erection is going unattended. Cas reaches down Dean’s back, hands skimming across his skin, then cupping Dean’s ass. He pulls him up until Dean’s groin is level with Cas,’ and his dick is pressing against Cas’ stomach. Dean huffs in surprise, then rolls his hips experimentally.

“Like this?” Dean lets go of Cas for a second to line them up, then wraps his fingers around both of their dicks, and Cas’ eyes close from the sudden, almost overwhelming friction. He knows he’s close, but he tries to hold back until Dean’s ready.

Given from the noises Dean’s making as he thrusts carefully into his hand and along Cas’ length, it might not take long. Cas doesn’t have much space to move, but he tries, pushing up against Dean, and the moan that drags its way from Dean’s throat is worth it.

“ _Cas_.” It sounds like a prayer, low and reverent, and with enough of something that Cas might call love in it to push him over the edge. He spills hot and wet into Dean’s hand, holding Dean tight as he comes, everything else dulled by the sensation.

Dean holds him through the shockwaves, then picks up speed, his movements becoming more and more irregular. “Let me,” Cas breathes, and Dean shifts enough that Cas can work his hand between them. Dean’s thrusts are desperate now, and it doesn’t take much for him to follow Cas over. His arms give and he collapses onto Cas.  He’s a little heavy, but Cas doesn’t mind. He holds him, his arms wrapped loosely around Dean, as they both try and relearn how to breath.

“That,” Dean says after what feels like a long time, though Cas, still lost in the afterglow, can’t really be sure. “That was fucking _awesome_.”

Cas just presses a kiss against Dean’s head and hums agreement. They’re going to have to move soon and make an altogether too-long trip to get cleaned up, but for now, this is perfect. Dean moves, just a little, to shift some of his weight off of Cas, though he stays wrapped around him like an octopus. For the first time since Dean came back, it feels like everything is going to work out.

* * *

That night, nothing disturbs them.

 The next morning, Cas still feels a little sweaty and sticky, but it’s inconsequential. Dean’s up and in the shower, singing loudly and surprisingly in-tune. He sounds happy, and Cas smiles into the pillow. He’d been a little worried, somewhere in between the last of the afterglow wearing off and falling asleep, that Dean would try and forget last night had happened. If he had, Cas isn’t sure if he would have been able to handle that. He’s got too many emotions wrapped up with Dean Winchester to be able to have one night of sex with him and then just return to being friends.

He slips out of bed and pads over to the bathroom door. It swings open at his touch, and he carefully steps inside.

Dean sees him immediately, and the grin on his face is enough to soothe away the last of Cas’ fears. There’s shampoo in his hair, shaping it into jagged spikes, and Cas smiles.

“Mornin’ sleepyhead.” Dean gestures at the shower. “Want to join me?”

Cas considers it. It’s tempting, but the shower is a little on the small side, and the walls are grungy. While the idea of Dean pressing him against the wall and fucking him until he can’t remember his name—or vice versa—is a tempting image, he’d rather hold out for somewhere more sanitary. “Maybe later.”

He waits while Dean finishes showering, and he’s fairly sure that Dean preens a little under his gaze. He certainly doesn’t seem to mind Cas staying in the bathroom. As soon as he’s out, Cas pushes him back against the towel rack, careful of Dean’s back, and kisses him hard. Dean’s waist is slippery under his hands, and he shoves back against Cas eagerly.

It would be easy to take this further, but there’s something satisfying about kissing just for the sake of it, relishing the little electric brushes of skin against skin and the needy press of Dean’s mouth. They’re both panting for breath by the time they break apart.

“I—I should shower,” Cas gasps, and steps back to let Dean out. When he’s done, Dean’s still in the bathroom, wearing jeans and nothing else. He’s got the gauze off, and when Cas steps out of the shower stall, he’s twisted around trying to see the wound in the mirror. He smiles at the reflection of Cas.

“Do you think I’ll get a dashing scar?”

“I think you have more than enough scars to be sufficiently dashing.” Cas pulls on a clean t-shirt and surreptitiously sniffs his over shirt. It’ll work for another day.

“I think we should go out to get breakfast,” Dean says, and Cas looks up. Dean’s trying to redo the bandages, and Cas carefully takes them from him. “We’ve been living off of crappy drive-through breakfast burritos for days, and a man needs pancakes every so often.” 

“Then we will find you pancakes.” Cas ties off the fresh gauze, letting his hand linger on Dean’s skin for just a little longer than he needs to.

There’s a little diner down the street from the motel. The outside is be-decked with cheerfully twinkling lights and Christmas music is blaring from the speakers by the door. Cas hadn’t realized how late in the year it was already. In the last few weeks since Dean came back, Cas feels like he’s been living outside of ordinary time.

Apparently, it’s been the same for Dean. “Crap, I don’t even know what day it is.” He reaches for the newspaper on the counter. “Wow, it’s almost Christmas.” Cas cranes to see the date and Dean obligingly angles the paper. It’s already the 18th of December. This time last year, he was in Spokane, wondering why he hadn’t decided to go to a warmer city for the winter and desperately trying to make ends meet by doing odd jobs.

They end up at a booth by the window. Dean orders pancakes that Cas is fairly sure have more merit as dessert than breakfast. For all that Dean argues that having fruit and milk with breakfast is good, Cas isn’t sure that apple pie filling and whipped cream count. Still, the look on Dean’s face when their food arrives makes up for its dubious nutritional quality.

“Did you do anything for Christmas last year?” Dean asks around a mouthful of pancake, and Cas looks up sharply. Dean shrugs. “It just seems like a holiday you’d be all over.”

Cas takes a sip of coffee. “There didn’t seem to be much worth celebrating,” he says carefully. “I was still adjusting to being human, and staying alive seemed like a greater priority.”

Dean purses his lips and nods. “Sammy and me never do much either. It just doesn’t feel as important when you’re fighting for your life. Hell, I think the last time we celebrated anything was the last Christmas before—” He breaks off, voice faltering. “—Before we met you.” _Before I went to Hell_ hangs unsaid between them.

The food is better than anything they’ve had in a long time, and the rest of the meal passes mostly in silence punctuated by Dean’s happy-food noises. To his own surprise, Cas matches Dean bite for bite. It still feels a little strange to eat with Dean after so many years of just watching.

It’s bitingly cold outside so they hurry back to the motel. Their room is nowhere as well heated as the diner, but it still feels nice after the walk over.

“So,” Dean says as they’re stripping off their coats, “I’m thinking we give Crowley forty-eight hours. If the slimy bastard hasn’t come up with something by then, we’ll start taking on his minions.”

Cas nods. “Fair enough. Do you want to move on?”

Dean throws himself onto his unmade bed and the springs squeal in protest. “Nah, let’s hang out here. If it’s almost Christmas, then _Die Hard_ is probably on at least one channel, and that’s one holiday tradition to stick to.”

Cas settles in next to him and Dean wriggles sideways to give him more room. Dean had carefully avoided touching him when they’d been out, but Cas had expected that. He’s been pleasantly surprised by how comfortable Dean is becoming in private, but it’s too much to hope that thirty-odd years of carefully avoiding public displays of affection would just be erased.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it,” Cas says, and he smiles at Dean’s indignant squawk. Dean fumbles for the remote and finds what Cas is assuming is the right film after a few minutes of frantic channel surfing. It’s apparently almost half way in, but Dean’s more than happy to fill him in on the backstory. Cas only half listens, letting Dean’s voice wash over him. Their bodies are barely touching, but it still feels intimate.

The movie ends and another begins. Dean’s seen this one too, and keeps up his commentary. At some point, his arm snakes up and wraps around Cas’ shoulders, pulling them just a little closer together. After that, Cas gives up trying to stay a respectable distance apart and leans against Dean.

The day slips away. They go back to the diner for lunch, then again for dinner. After they’ve finished dinner, their waitress brings them free slices of pie “for customer loyalty,” and Dean’s face lights up.

They fall asleep wrapped in each other’s arms, legs tangled under the sheets.

* * *

“Well, well, well, don’t you two make a lovely picture?”

Cas starts awake, sitting up before his brain can catch up with his reflexes. Beside him, Dean groans, and opens one eye. “Cas?” He rolls over, following Cas’ gaze, then freezes. “Crap.”

Crowley’s standing in front of the TV, smiling down at them. “I’d say I was surprised, but really, there’ve been rumors of you two’s blasphemous love affair for years. I assumed you started buggering each other ages ago.”

Dean sits, pulling the blanket up to cover as much of himself and Cas as he can. That just makes Crowley’s amusement grow. “Please, don’t bother on my account. You’re not quite my type, princess.” He jerks his head at Cas. “Angel, there, now that’s another story, but that ship has long since sailed.”

“What have you found out?” Dean’s practically growling, but his voice is still bleary with sleep, lessening the effect. He roots around under the pillow and pulls out his pistol. “Start talking or I start shooting you full of holes. It might not kill you, but I bet it’ll sting like Hell.”

“I found out who has your brother.” He raises his eyebrows, and Dean, still frowning, lowers the gun. “Like we suspected, he’s fallen victim to a group of old Lucifer’s fan boys. As best as I can tell, they need him for some ritual that’s set to go down on the solstice.”

“The solstice?” Cas glances over at Dean. “That’s in two days.”

“Exactly. Which is why you boys need to go deep, deep underground until it’s passed.”

“And let the ritual take place? No fucking way.”

Crowley’s frowning now too, annoyance written in every line on his face. “Use your brain, you numbskull. Why would anyone bother resurrecting two Winchesters if they only needed one?”

“If the demons need Dean for the ritual, then why is he still here?” Cas’ thoughts flash back to the condemned apartment and the way Dean’s captors had laid him out like he was the centerpiece of some kind of twisted altar.

Crowley shrugs. “Maybe it was easier to let him run around chasing his own tail than try and capture him before the party.”

Cas slides out of bed, ignoring Crowley’s appreciative look as he pulls on his pants. “Then we need to demon-proof, make amulets, maybe move somewhere safer.”

“I’d recommend doing all those things.”

“The ritual,” Dean says, “what’s it supposed to do?”

“Do you want my best guess?”

Dean nods.

“There are many powerful demons that my forces have imprisoned in Hell. It takes strong magic to break through those bonds, but as archangels’ vessels, you and Sam have powerful blood, especially since Sam’s still got just a dash of Lucifer’s own influence running through him. Once, our little Moose could have been the Boy King, and Hell remembers its own.”

“Great, well, that’s just perfect.”

“We’ll stop it, Dean.” Cas turns to Crowley. “You will continue to search for where they’re holding Sam?”

“I’ll do my best,” Crowley says mildly, and Cas and Dean both stare at him. “What? If this bleeding ritual works, then I’ll be up to my eyeballs in over-zealous Lucifer-worshippers, and that’s the last thing I want. Believe it or not, I’m actually on your side here.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are.”

Crowley shakes his head. “Put some pants on, Dean.” He disappears.

“Well, fuck.”

Cas can’t help but agree.

* * *

They leave the motel room as soon as Crowley leaves. The recession has hit hard enough that it’s not difficult to find an out-of-the-way empty house in the next decent sized town they come across. It’s not much, just a singlewide trailer, but the small size works in their favor—there’s only so much space they have to demon-proof.

Cas starts work on painting the sigils while Dean brings in the weapons from the Impala. Dean’s cheeks are bright red from the cold when he gets back inside, and as soon as Cas has finished with the spray paint, he kisses him until the flush is coming from something else.

After the house is secure there isn’t much left to take care of. Dinner comes from a cold can of baked beans, and afterwards, there’s nothing to do but huddle together and wait for morning.

“I hate this,” Dean says. They’re wrapped in a couple of cheap, slightly musty sleeping bags from the trunk that Dean had zipped together. The electricity to the house had been cut off and their only light source is a battery powered Colman lantern. “Somewhere out there, Sammy’s being prepared for some freaky demon ritual, and all I can do is hope that _Crowley_ will come through and rescue him.”

“We can’t risk the demons finding you,” Cas says softly. “Crowley had a point about them needing you as well as Sam. They want you to try and save him.”

Dean starts to say something, but it gets bitten back as he grunts in pain, curling forward to rest his head in his hands.

“Dean? What’s wrong?”

“Vision,” Dean grits out. Cas sits up and pulls Dean against his chest. Dean’s muscles are tight and he shudders in Cas’ hold. Finally, the vision passes and Dean relaxes. Cas helps him slide back down until he’s lying on his side, facing Cas.

“It’s like they’re taunting me,” Dean whispers. “All I saw was Sam, broken and bleeding, and then—then he wasn’t. It was like he looked right at me, and he—he smiled. I think it’s finally happened. I think the demons finally got him to crack, and just in the nick of time.” He laughs softly, but it’s hollow and humorless.

Cas edges closer to him and wraps his arms around him tightly. He doesn’t feel like sleeping, which is probably partly because it’s not actually that late yet. It’s just another reminder of how close they are to the solstice.

Over the next few hours, Dean’s body freezes up a few more times, leaving him shivering and gasping when the vision passes.

“It’s too late,” he says after the third vision. “I don’t think he’s _Sam_ anymore. I’ve failed.”

“We’ll find a way,” Cas murmurs, but it’s feeling less and less like they will. Even if they survive past the set time for the ritual, the chances are that Sam’s lost now. He’d known since the first time he’d seen Sam just how close to the darkness that boy was. Over the years, he’d proved to be far braver and stronger than Cas would ever have guessed, but there’s only so much pain that a human can take and still remain sane. It wasn’t so hard to believe, after everything he’d been through, that Sam had reached his breaking point.

Somehow, Cas finally starts to drift off. It’s Dean’s sudden tensing that jars him awake.

“Did you have another vis—umh!”

Dean presses his hand against Cas’ mouth and whispers in his ear, “I think I heard something.”

Cas stills, trying to hear something beyond Dean’s breathing and the rustle of the wind outside.

If it is wind.

Something scrapes against the walls, a raspy scratch like branches caught in the wind, but there’re in the plains of Kansas—there isn’t a tree for miles.

Dean jerks his head and eases out of the sleeping bag. He picks up Ruby’s knife and passes Cas his sword. Cas flicks off the lantern, and they stand back to back in the darkness.

The scratching stops. Cas’ breath sounds unnaturally loud in the silence, and his blood is pounding in his ears.

There’s another noise from outside, a thud of boots on the wooden porch.

“Dean?” The voice coming from the outside of the door is painfully familiar. Behind him, Dean’s breath leaves him in a strangled gasp that’s almost a sob.

“Dean, I know you’re in there. Why don’t you come outside and we’ll talk?” There’s a short pause. “I’ve missed you, Dean.” The voice that sounds, far, far to much like Sam is pleading now, almost wistful, and Cas can’t imagine what’s running through Dean’s head now. He guesses it’s close to what’s he can’t stop thinking of—Dean’s last vision of Sam joining the demons. “Please, come out?”

“Why don’t you come inside?” Dean calls out, and his voice is remarkably steady. “Don’t know if you noticed, but it’s a bit chilly out there.”

“Very funny, Dean,” Sam says. “Fine, if you’re going to be difficult…” Everything goes quiet.

“What’s—” Cas starts, then breaks off. The house starts to shake, and the wind comes up again, screeching around the corners of the house, rattling the windows and the gutters. The walls start to crack a moment later. At it’s first just spider webs radiating from around the door and windows, then they grow into jagged dark lines that split the walls and snake across the floor towards the devil’s traps, ripping through the lines.

The big window in the living rooms shatters inward and Cas throws up his hands to protect his face from the flying glass. The house is bathed in light as red as Hellfire, an otherworldly spotlight. The wind picks up, ripping the roof off in chunks. He knows the second the last demon warding goes, because he can hear Sam laughing as the walls collapse outwards, leaving him and Dean exposed.

He turns towards Dean, but Dean pushes him away. “Run, Cas! Just get out of here!”

Cas takes a stumbling step, more from the force of Dean’s shove than anything else, but even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t have gone far. The house is surrounded, but not with demons. As best as he can tell, the people surrounding the house in a loose ring are just that: _people_. There are probably a few dozen of them, and their dark hooded robes look like every bad cliché Cas has ever heard. Between them and Cas stands Sam. Somehow, he looks taller than he had before, and when the light catches his eyes, they flare a bright, sickly yellow.

“Okay, fine, you have me.” Dean raises his hands in surrender, Ruby’s knife clattering the floor. “Why don’t you let Cas go?”

Sam rolls his eyes at them, and for a second he looks like his old self. “Of course, Cas is here. Do you remember that he was with you when I died? The two of you ran off to kill Roman and I didn’t have anyone to watch my back. You chose him over me, and I got my neck broken by a Leviathan. Great job looking out for me, Dean, really stellar.”

“You’re not my brother.” Dean’s close to desperate, and Cas takes a step towards him.

“You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?” Sam smirks. “Come on, you’ve seen enough things that looked like me to tell the difference! Look me in the eye and tell me I’m not Sam.”

Cas would like to think he could recognize the real Sam when he saw him, but he just can’t be sure. He waits for Dean to speak, but it never comes. Dean’s eyes meet Sam’s, and it’s Dean’s gaze that drops first. His shoulders slump and his entire body radiates defeat. It’s all the answer Cas needs.

Sam smiles, wide and satisfied. “We’ll take both of them.”

Cas tenses, expecting some kind of demonic onslaught, but that doesn’t come either. Instead, there’s a rush of air followed by a sharp pain on the side of his neck. His hand goes to his throat and he pulls out the slender metal dart. He frowns and holds it up, already half-dazed.

“Dammit, Cas,” Dean starts, then grunts in pain. He staggers sideways into Cas and they both fall. Cas braces himself for the impact, but he never feels it. He’s unconscious by the time he hits the floor.

It’s still dark when he wakes up.

Cas stretches, feeling every stiff muscle, then freezes when his hand touches cold metal. He’s lying on his back on a hard, uneven surface, and he’s not tied up. That doesn’t matter, because it only takes a few seconds of careful exploration to realize that he’s in some kind of cell and the metal he’d found is one of the bars of the door.

He tries to sit up, but regrets it when his head pounds and a surge of nausea hits him. He’s able to breath through the queasiness, but the headache throbs stubbornly. The air is stagnant and musty, and he guesses he’s underground somewhere.

There’s rustling a few feet away and Cas draws back. “Dean?” He keeps his voice low. He hadn’t heard any sign of other people, but he hadn’t realized he wasn’t alone either.

“Mumph?” The words are unintelligible, but it’s clearly Dean. Cas reaches out and inches across the rough stone floor. He finds Dean by feel.

“Are you alright?”

“Oh, I’m just peachy,” Dean says roughly, and moans. “My brother’s a demon, we’re prisoners in a freakin’ dungeon, and we’re right where they want us for a ritual that could destroy life as we know it. Yeah, I’m fucking _fantastic_.”

“We might still be able to stop the ritual. The demons have humans working for them—we could overpower them, exorcise or kill the demons, and escape.” Cas pauses, considering. “Though the likelihood of any of that succeeding seems slim.”

“You’re just a regular ray of sunshine, aren’t you?”

Cas closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I’m only trying to help, Dean.”

For a long second, he thinks Dean’s just going to ignore him, but then there’s a muttered “Sorry” from the shadows.

“If I could see the lock, I might be able to pick it,” Dean says, after a few more quiet minutes have passed.

“Could—” There’s the echo of heavy footsteps from outside their cell. It’s more of the robed humans, a group of six armed with what Cas is guessing are the tranquilizer guns they’d been shot with at the house and Tasers, which seem at odds with the blazing torches several of them are carrying. One of them settles their torch into a bracket on the wall opposite from their cell door, and its flickering light throws grotesque shadows across the floor.

“The messenger of our Lord wishes to see you,” one of them says, and unlocks the door. Cas takes a step forwards, and the man shakes his head. “Not you. Just him.” He points at Dean.

“Okay, I’m coming, just don’t shoot.” Dean catches Cas’ eyes, then deliberately looks back down at the floor where he’d been sitting, his gaze flicking back to their captors fast enough for them to pass the look off as coincidence.

Cas stays where he is, watching them lead Dean away for as long as he can. They’d left the torch on the wall, and Cas waits until they’re out of hearing, then turns to where Dean had been.

Something thin and metallic glints against the darkness of the stone floor, and Cas holds it up into the light. It’s one of Dean’s lock picks and, after a few seconds of searching, he finds the others.

“Thank you, Dean,” Cas whispers.

The firelight isn’t as bright as Cas would have liked, and the lock picks feel clumsy in his fingers. He’s never picked a lock before, but he’s watched Dean several times, and he’s familiar with the theory. Still, the knowledge of how to pick a lock is one thing. Having to pick one in a dark dungeon while the threat of certain death hangs over you is completely different matter.

He works on the lock for a long time. It’s a big, old-fashioned padlock that he has a feeling Dean would be able to crack in seconds. It’s not that easy for Cas. About half an hour in, he’s reduced to desperately poking the lock picks into the keyhole and hoping that something catches. He’s almost given up hope when the lock _clicks_. He eases the hasp open, hands trembling.

The picks go into his pocket and he eases the torch out of its bracket. He holds it up, trying to orient himself. As far as he can see, his cell is one of many lining a long, narrow corridor. They’d taken Dean away down the left-hand side, but it looks like the cells stretch further down to the right. Cas frowns, hesitating. He needs to rescue Dean, but he can’t leave if the demons are holding any other prisoners down here. He turns right.

The further he goes, the more oppressive the air gets. Where he and Dean had been imprisoned, the air had been dank, but breathable. What he hadn’t realized at first was that he wasn’t just going _out_ , he was also going _down_. The deeper he gets, the fouler the air becomes. The smell of sulfur overlays everything else, but under it there’s the creeping stench of death and the coppery tang of blood. Cas’ nausea swells again, and he has to bend over, supporting himself against the damp wall with one hand, until it passes.

The cells are all empty, and coming down here is starting to feel like a bad idea. He should have just followed after Dean—he should turn back now—but something keeps pushing him on. When the passage suddenly ends, Cas almost runs into the wall, too absorbed in checking the cells to realize that he’s hit a dead end. He backs up a few paces and stares at the wall. It’s smooth, damp stone just like the rest of the tunnel, but there has to be something else here. He couldn’t have come all this way and wasted all this time for nothing.

He takes a step forwards, and something shifts and clanks under his foot. There’s a rustling noise beneath Cas and he lowers the torch. There’s a grill in the floor, no bigger than a manhole cover and held fast with the same kind of lock as the cell doors. There’s movement beyond the bars, but the light isn’t strong enough to show him any details.

“Hello?”

“There’s no chance you’ll just fuck off, is there?” The voice is quiet, raspy, but still defiant. It’s also impossible.

“What the Hell are you?”

“Look, you’ve won. I get it. You don’t have to gloat.”

Cas hesitates, then sets the torch against the wall and starts to work on the lock. He has to be sure.

This lock comes free easier than the first. He picks up the torch again before he opens the hatch, thrusting it down into the space as soon as there’s room.

The figure in the cell below shies away from the flame, one hand coming up to shield his eyes. The man is dirty and bloodied, his hair tangled into snarls, but he’s still immediately recognizable.

“Sam?” Cas breathes, and the man looks up.

“Cas—Castiel?”

Cas has no idea why he’d ever believed it had really been Sam the night before. Maybe he does know the younger Winchester better than he realized, or maybe more of his angelic abilities had lingered than he’d thought, because this _feels_ like Sam. He’s staring up at Cas and smiling, open and honest, and he’s completely different from the Sam that had captured them.

“Seriously, I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you right now. I mean, the real you. The demon—” Sam breaks off, his gaze drifting to over Cas’ shoulder. “Is Dean with you?”

Cas shakes his head. “I’m guessing he’s with a demon that looks more than a little like you.” It’s starting to come together. It’s no secret that Sam had always walked a thin line with the dark side, and that it had nearly torn the brothers apart. If the demons truly wanted to utterly destroy Dean, then what better way than to make him think his greatest nightmare had come true?

“We need to get to them. If they have Dean, then they must be almost ready for the ritual,” Sam says.

Cas sets the torch back in on the wall, then takes a deep breath and sends up an unheard prayer that he’s making the right decision. He reaches down, and lets Sam grabs his hand. Sam is surprisingly easy to pull up. He’s lost weight during his captivity, and the plain shirt and pants hang even looser on him than they had on Dean back in Seattle.

Sam stumbles a little as he climbs to his feet, and Cas reflexively reaches out to steady him.

“Thanks,” Sam says, then laughs softly. “I can’t believe you’re really here.” He’s still standing there, looking down at Cas with the same relaxed smile he’d had before. He starts forward, and Cas tenses. Sam’s arms wrap around him in a tight hug and he relaxes. Sam pulls away much quicker than Dean usually does. “Let’s get going.”

Cas carries the torch as they walk. Sam’s still a little unsteady, and Cas isn’t sure just how badly he’s injured. There are actually quite a few things he’s not sure about. “So why is there a demon who looks like you?”

“His name’s Ornias. I guess he’s got some kind of shape-shifting ability, and he can get inside your head, make you believe that whatever you’re seeing is real, even when you know it shouldn’t be.” Sam bites his lip. “It worked on me for a while, but eventually my brain, I dunno, adjusted to it. That’s how I could tell it was really you.”

“It could be a lingering effect from the demon blood.”

“At least I get one decent side effect.” He gestures towards Cas, hands casting wild shadows on the walls. “What about you? You seem less crazy, and, um, different.”

“I’m human,” Cas says quietly. “I have been for a while now.”

“Oh,” Sam says in a small voice. “That would explain it.” He clears his throat. “Are you, uh, doing okay?”

Cas smiles. “I’ve been surviving. Though we’ve only been reunited for a few weeks, Dean’s been quite educational.” And that sounds far more like an innuendo than he’d intended. “As has the television and the internet.” That doesn’t help at all.

Sam chuckles. “I’m sure they all have.”

“What do you know about the demon’s plan?” Cas tries to ask gently. He’s not sure if Sam is really doing as well as he seems, or if he’s really just one wrong push away from breaking down entirely.

“I know that they’re trying to free some of Lucifer’s old lieutenants that are imprisoned in Hell. They’re trying to create a gateway, and they’re planning on using me.” Sam staggers slightly, catching himself on the wall. “They also need blood for the ritual and to feed the demons afterwards, lots of it and the right kind, and that’s why they brought back Dean. It had to be powerful, and anything less than the blood of an archangel’s vessel would corrupt the spell.”

Sam stops, doubling over to hold his knees. Cas turns and holds the torch up to get a better look at him.

 “Are you hurt?” Cas asks, and Sam shakes his head.

“I’ll be fine,” he says, but his voice is still shaky. He lets out a ragged breath, then straightens up and keeps walking like nothing happened. “The ritual has to start at sunrise on the Winter Solstice exactly. At that moment, Earth and Hell will be in the right mystical alignment for the spell to work. If they miss that window, they won’t have another opportunity for about two hundred years. It sounds like there’s more involved than just the solstice.”

“Apparently.”

“Is there anyone else coming?”

Cas hesitates. “Crowley was trying to find you. I think we can trust that he wants to stop these demons, but I doubt he’ll reach us in time.”

“So it’s just us. Team Free Will back together.” Sam smiles, and even through his weariness, there’s a little bit of optimism there. Cas just hopes it isn’t misplaced.

The walk back up doesn’t take long, even with Sam’s unsteady gait. He keeps tripping on the uneven floor, but he lets Cas help support his weight after Cas catches him for the fifth time. Cas and Dean’s cell is still empty when they reach it. Cas hadn’t really been expecting Dean to be back, but he’d been wishing he would be. The sooner Sam and Dean can be reunited, the better.

Their cell is closer to the end of the tunnel than Cas had realized, but a heavy wooden door blocks the way out. It’s locked, and Cas takes a second to futilely try and force it before he pulls out the lock picks. He jiggles the picks like he had on the others, trusting more to luck than skill, and swears quietly when nothing happens.

“Here.” Sam crouches down next to him, wincing. “Let me.”

Cas hands the picks over to him, feeling a little like the over-confidant child who still needs the adults to fix their messes. He knows it’s groundless—Sam’s been picking locks practically his whole life and Cas had never even held a lock pick before today, but it’s just another of the little things that would have been so easy for him before.

Sam’s hands are shaking a little, but it only takes a few deft movements before the lock clicks. He smiles at Cas. “Hey, don’t worry. You’ll get it.”

“Maybe,” Cas says. “If we survive this.”

He opens the door.

On the other side is the largest cavern he’s seen in a long, long time. He’d been in larger as an angel, when little things like pressure and hundreds of feet of solid rock separating him from the surface had been trivial. Then, they’d been little more than set dressing, something to take in, but not really _see_. Now, all Cas can do is stare.

His first thought is that it’s like a cathedral. The ceiling is high and vaulted, and the glistening limestone of the walls is almost translucent as it reflects the light of the braziers and torches lining the walls and spaced through the hall. An intricate flagstone mosaic spelling out ancient warding rituals covers the floor. It’s no wonder Crowley couldn’t find this place—Cas is sure that given time he could bypass the cavern’s shields, but until then, this place would be invisible to him or to any other prying eyes.

For all its grandeur, the cavern is almost deserted. There’s a dark tunnel leading out of it at the end closer to them, which Cas guesses is the exit, but the only occupants are at the far end, a good two hundred yards away. There’s about half a dozen hooded figures there, clustered around what must be an altar set on a tall dais. They’re too far away for Cas to make out any other details in the dim light, but the acoustics in the cave are incredible.

“I can’t believe you never understood how little I needed you. ” It’s Sam’s voice, but it’s the demon wearing his face talking. “I mean, come on, all this power was just waiting for me and there you were, dragging me down with you.”

There’s a pained grunt, and Cas doesn’t need Sam—the real Sam’s—sharp inhale to know that it’s Dean.

“Sam,” Dean gasps. Cas can’t see him, and he has an unpleasant feeling it’s because he’s on the ground. “Please. I don’t know what they’ve promised you, but you can still stop this.”

There’s a tap on Cas’ shoulder and he turns away from the tableau at the end of the hall. Sam’s gaze is sure and focused; whatever pain he’s in, he’s hiding it well. He’s trying to signal something to Cas using the military hand signs he’d presumably learned from his father, but to Cas, it’s just meaningless hand waving.

He shrugs and Sam pauses for a second, frowning, then gives up on the formal signs entirely in favor of more direct gestures. After that, it doesn’t take long for Cas to decipher Sam’s meaning: Cas will continue towards the altar on the side of the hall that they’re on, and Sam will take the other side.

Sam carefully slides a second torch out of its bracket. They’ve been quiet, and hopefully the light is diffused enough in the cave that their approach won’t be noticed until it’s too late. Of course, once they do attack, they’ll be armed with nothing but frankly flimsy-looking pieces of wood. Their odds aren’t the best, but Cas can’t imagine leaving Dean here, even if it would be the prudent choice. Besides, there’s no way of knowing what’s beyond the other passageway. Even if it is the way out, it’s probably guarded. It’s more or less the same choice Cas has always had when it comes to the Winchesters, and his decision is no different.

He edges along the wall, trying to balance speed and silence. Every soft footfall sounds deafening, and he’s sure the demons can hear his breathing.

The demon that looks like Sam—Ornias—is still talking, but Cas tries not to listen. He’s already heard enough to know that the demon is throwing back every line that’s ever hurt Dean, playing on every fear about his brother he might harbor. Still, if it’s trying to get Dean to turn against Sam, Cas isn’t sure it’s working. He _is_ trying to hear Dean and, from the snatches he’s catching, Dean’s still trying to get through to whatever he thinks is left of Sam. Cas just hopes the real Sam is hearing it too.

If he looks hard enough, Sam is barely visible on the other side of the hall. Cas reaches the group by the altar first and waits, pressed against the wall, watching for Sam’s signal. He still can’t see Dean—the people in robes are clustered too close together, forming a ring around the dais, Dean, and the demons.

Ornias has his back to the circle, but the other demon is facing towards Cas, his eyes glowing a dull red in the torchlight. He’s unremarkable, a balding man with a bland face that Cas would forget as soon as he looked away if he saw him on the street. The red eyes are unmistakable, though. Crowley hadn’t mentioned about one of his crossroads demons turning, but perhaps this demon has been subtler than Cas usually gives them credit for. That or Crowley’s been lying to them all along.

 A movement by the opposite wall catches his eye. Sam’s finally in position. Cas takes a deep breath, adjusts his hold on the torch, and charges.

They’re noticed the second they move out from the wall, which Cas had been expecting. Their footfalls echo around the cavern, and the demons would have to be deaf to miss them.

The outside ring must all be human, because they react just a fraction slower than the demons. Cas and Sam hit them at a full run, swinging their torches, and they scatter, pulling away from the altar and looking towards the crossroads demon for guidance.

“I’d stop there, if I was you.” Ornias reaches down and easily pulls Dean up from the floor, holding a wicked-looking dagger to his throat. Cas freezes and, beyond the demon’s shoulder, Sam does the same.

“Cas,” Dean chokes out. He’s bleeding from a cut over his eye and he’s as pale as he was when Cas first found him in Seattle. “You’re alive.”

Cas smiles. “I’m not the only one.”

“Put him down,” Sam says, his voice a low growl, and Cas doesn’t know how he’s managing to sound so forceful. A few minutes ago, he’d thought Sam was on the verge of passing out.

The crossroads demon folds his arms over his chest and sighs. “Of course, you found our little pet. I knew we should have killed you as soon as we found you.”

“Sammy? What the Hell?” Dean twists a little in Ornias’ grip, trying to look behind him. The knife blade digs a little deeper into his skin, stopping just short of drawing blood, and he stills.

“Sam, Castiel, why don’t you come up here, we’ll talk?” The crossroads demon’s voice is as average as the rest of him, mild and almost friendly. Cas catches Sam’s eyes, who shrugs, and climbs the few steps up into the pool of brighter light around the altar, walking around Ornias until Dean can see him. Cas follows him, positioning himself on Ornias’ other side. There might still be some way they could overpower the demon and rescue Dean.

“Sammy,” Dean says again, staring at his brother. His eyes flick over to Cas. “He the real thing?”

Cas nods, and the crossroads demon chuckles. “Are you sure about that? He could just be another trick.”

“I’m sure.” Cas pulls himself as tall as he can and meets the demon’s eyes. “I pulled Sam Winchester from Hell. I’ve been in his mind. I can recognize the ‘real thing’ when I see it.”

“A nice speech, but don’t try and fool me, Castiel. I know just how little power you have. You’re impotent, weak. A few years ago, you could have killed me like an insect—now I can do the same to you.” The demon takes a step towards Cas and raises his hand.

“Please, stop!” Dean’s looking between Cas and the demon, and he’s gone even paler than he was before. “Come on, you don’t have to kill him. You’ve won, just let him go.”

Ornias laughs, and the movement jars the dagger. Dean winces, and when he moves his head a thin line of blood catches the light.

The crossroads demon smiles amicably. “Really, Dean, you’re not very subtle, are you? Does your brother know about all the nasty things you and your little wingless angel have been up to?”

Dean closes his eyes.

Sam’s looking between his brother and Cas, his forehead crinkled into a frown. “Dean?”

“Look, Sam, I can explain—” Dean’s voice is tight and just a little desperate.

“You and Cas are, um, together now?”

“Well, kinda, yeah…” Dean’s not looking at any of them, but he’d actually said it. He’d told Sam what Cas hadn’t been sure he’d been able to tell Cas himself—that it was more than just a night of passion and a few stolen kisses. He just wishes that it hadn’t been under these circumstances.

Sam huffs out a laugh. “God, finally!”

Dean looks up at him sharply and the crossroads demon frowns. “What?” The demon raises his eyebrows at Sam. “You knew about this?”

“Dude, I think everyone who saw them knew it.” Sam’s still smiling, but he’s edging backwards as he talks, slowly enough that the demons might not notice. He’s only a few inches away from the altar now, and Cas’ stomach lurches as he realizes that there’s a selection of weapons laid out on the stone, presumable for use in Dean’s impending death and whatever was supposed to happen to Sam.

Ruby’s knife is one of the blades, and Sam’s making a show of waving the torch while he talks as his free hand reaches behind him for its handle. “You should have seen the looks they gave each other. For years. Without doing anything. Seriously, the level of denial was mind-numbing.”

“So you—you’re okay with this?” Dean’s staring at Sam, disbelief plain on his face.

“You seriously have to ask that? Just keep the PDA to a minimum when I’m in the room, okay?” Sam reaches the knife, grabbing it off the altar and lunging at the crossroads demon in one smooth move. The demon moves faster, though, turning away at the last moment. The knife cuts through the demon’s robe and catches in the fabric.

The demon’s hand flies out and Sam’s thrown backwards, hitting the altar with an echoing thud. The knife slips free from the cloth and falls to the floor, skittering across the stone towards Cas.

It’s too perfect of an opportunity to miss. Cas snatches up the blade and stabs at Ornias, aiming for the demon’s back, but Ornias turns, dragging Dean with him and holding him as a shield. Cas has too much momentum to stop, but he can’t hurt Dean. The blow goes wide, missing Dean and slicing along the edge of Ornias’ arm. It’s not a serious wound, but it cuts deep, the light from the wound lighting up the edges of the torn and bloody fabric of Ornias’ sleeve.

The demon hisses in pain, grabbing at his shoulder, and his grip on Dean loosens. Dean slips free and Cas catches him, dragging him back and away from the demons.

“ _Stop!_ ” The crossroads demon’s voice is like a thunderclap in the enclosed space and Cas turns back. Sam is on his knees by the altar and the demon is holding his head back, baring his throat to the long sword in the demon’s hand.

“We’ve had enough games,” the demon hisses. “It’s almost dawn, and it’s time to make your choice, Sam. Do you want to survive this? You will be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams.”

Sam’s eyes are fixed on Dean and Cas. “Not if it means betraying my family.”

“Fine. Then you’ll die in agony as my lords use you as their threshold into this world.” The demon gestures with his head and the dozen hooded humans that are still in the hall carefully take a few steps closer. “Careful with the Winchester. I was hoping the angel would see our triumph, but if you can’t avoid it, kill him. Just don’t do it here.”

Dean staggers to his feet and raises his fists. “Sorry about this, Cas,” he says softly. “I didn’t want it to end like this.” The demon’s minions are closing in around them from the front and the demons are behind them. There’s nowhere to run, and Cas isn’t sure that Dean could take that many of them unarmed, even if he hadn’t just been tortured.

One gets within striking distance of Dean, and he swings, his punch catching the hooded man squarely in the jaw. He goes down, and it’s the only signal the rest of them need. They rush them in a mass of black fabric and grabbing hands.

Cas gets in a few blows, but there’s too many and he still can’t reconcile the amount of strength he expects his punches to have with reality. He gives up when he feels the cold barrel of a gun jammed under his chin, and lets them drag him over by Sam.

Dean’s still fighting, but Cas doesn’t know how. He must be running on nothing but adrenaline and sheer willpower by now, but he’s still on his feet. One of the minions that had taken down Cas moves to help the others, but Ornias makes a dismissive noise.

“Nybbas, can you take care of this?”

“Gladly.” The crossroads demon smiles, and Dean cries out, dropping to the ground and holding his head. It looks uncomfortably familiar.  

“It was you,” Cas says. “You were sending Dean the visions of Sam, keeping us on the wrong trail.”

Nybbas nods. “I also blocked your frankly pathetic attempts to scry for Sam, though how you found Dean in the first place, I’m still not sure. Maybe you can explain that to me before you die.” He waves his hand at the altar. “Lay Dean out there. It’s time.”

“Cas? You have a plan?” Sam whispers, and Cas shakes his head slightly. They’re outnumbered, weakened, and they’ve run out of time. Dean is motionless on the altar, and Cas and Sam are both too well guarded to move.

Around them, the demon’s followers have formed a loose circle at the base of the dais, their heads bowed and arms outstretched. Ornias clears his throat, then begins to chant, the mix of Latin and Enochian strong and sure in Sam’s borrowed voice. The crossroads demon carefully lifts Dean’s torso, easing his arms free of the sleeves of his over shirt, then lays him back down, leaving Dean’s arms naked again the dark stone.

Cas’ breath quickens as panic wells up in him. Desperation beats a frantic tattoo against his skull until his head’s pounding and his chest tightens. He can’t let them go through with this. He may just be human now, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less of his responsibility. It was his own actions, his own pride and shortsightedness that allowed these demons to manipulate events to get Dean and Sam into this position.

He has to stop them.

Ornias’ chanting continues, and the worshippers around them join in, the sound swelling through the cavern. Nybbas selects one of the knives laid out on the stone, and, almost delicately, slices across Dean’s forearm. Blood wells up, trickling down to blacken the already-dark stone.

The change is immediate. As Dean’s blood hisses against the altar, its smell fills the room, and Cas gags on the first breath of coppery air. The pressure shifts too, like the weight before a storm arrives.

The demon roughly pushes Dean off the altar and drags Sam up against the stone. He hesitates, as if he’s deciding exactly where he should cut, and Cas acts.

He scrambles to his feet, throwing off the guard holding him down, and climbs up onto the high altar. There’s a blade at his feet, the angelic sword Dean had handed him back in the trailer, and he snatches it up.

The chanting wavers to a stop. The crossroads demon blinks up at him, his knife still poised over Sam.

“Cas,” Sam breathes, “what are you doing?”

“I heard that this ritual is delicate,” Cas says, and somehow, he sounds confident and strong. It’s a world away from how he feels, but this is the right choice. It’s the only choice. “That’s why you went to all this trouble to resurrect Sam and Dean. They were the only ones with blood powerful enough to make the spell work.”

“Why don’t you come down?” the crossroads demon says, taking a step backwards.

“Let go of Sam,” Cas says, but the demon just smiles and lowers the knife, nicking Sam’s skin to let a few drops of blood splash onto the stone. There’s a rumble like thunder in the distance, and the cavern shudders.

“You can have him,” the demon says, and lets Sam slide to the ground. Dean still hasn’t moved and Sam’s slumped against the altar stone, breath heaving from something more than the cut, and his eyes focused on some point towards the ceiling.

Cas takes a step to the left to stand in the center of the altar. He hadn’t realized quite how tall it is—he’s towering over their heads, but he’s never felt so small. His hands are shaking as he carefully shifts the blade in his hand so the point is resting against the tender skin at the inside of his wrist.

“The ritual has already started,” Ornias says. “If you end it now, like that, the energy released will bring this whole place down on all our heads. Your beloved Winchesters will die, and my friend and I will be long gone.”

“We were already dead,” Dean says. He slowly climbs to his feet, eyes fixed on Cas. “That doesn’t mean you have to do this, Cas.”

“Do you think a few drops of blood will make a difference?” Ornias asks. “It’s your life’s blood or nothing, little angel. Can you really do that?”

Cas looks between them. Sam is still motionless on the ground. Ornias smiles at him, then starts chanting again, his followers raggedly joining in. The crossroads demon looks impossibly smug, and why shouldn’t he? Whatever nightmares they’re summoning are already on their way out of Hell, crawling up through Sam.

“Cas, please, don’t do this,” Dean says. He’s bleeding from a cut lip, and when Cas bends down and kisses him, he can taste copper. He doesn’t care.

“Just run,” he says softly. “Take Sam and run, as fast as you can.”

“Don’t you dare say that to me,” Dean hisses, and reaches for Cas’ hand, but Cas is already pulling away. He reverses the blade and, before he can change his mind, drives it towards his chest.

Dean lunges for his arm and manages to catch the sleeve of his jacket, throwing off Cas’ aim. He’d meant to hit his heart—he guessed that had to count as life’s blood, even if it might not bleed as much as other injuries, but Dean’s pull on his arm makes the sword cut into his side instead, catching on his bottom rib and sliding easily into his flesh.

It doesn’t have the acidic burn that the cut of an angelic blade had held before he’d lost his Grace, but it still hurts worse than anything else he’d ever felt. He wants to throw up. He wants to black out and have it all be over, but he can’t do either. He pulls out the sword and his blood gushes over the stone. Cas collapses onto the altar and, through the black and yellow static obscuring his vision, Dean’s blurry face comes into view.

There’s pressure on the wound, a dull ache through the burn, and Dean’s shouting something in his ear. Everything goes numb, even the pain, and all he can feel is relief. He loses consciousness, but it only lasts for a minute. When he comes to again, the comforting numbness is gone. There’s shouting, and figuring it can’t hurt any worse, Cas opens his eyes.

The cavern is shaking, pieces of limestone from the ceiling breaking free and crashing against the flagstones, and the intricate mosaics on the floor are cracking and corrupted, their protective sigils useless. Dean is still standing over him, his discarded over shirt balled up and pressed over the hole in Cas’ side.

Sam is behind Ornias, Ruby’s knife gleaming in his hand, and before Cas can blink, he brings the blade up into his double’s back. Ornias falls to the ground, his chant still hanging in the air, and he loses definition, Sam’s features shifting into something like a shop window mannequin, nothing more than a blank slate.

Sam turns towards Nybbas, chest heaving, then stops, his eye caught by something down in the demon’s followers.

The chanting and yells stop abruptly, and the cavern goes quiet. For a second, there’s nothing but the rumble of the walls, Cas’ labored breathing, and the steady, slow rhythm of someone clapping.

“My, my, what a scene,” a familiar voice says, and the crossroads demon, who’s still standing by the altar, pales. “And there I was thinking that you boys might be done with the self-sacrificing by now. Oh well, I suppose some people never change.”

“Crowley,” Dean snarls, turning away from Cas. “Couldn’t you have got here a little sooner?”

“I came as soon as I could,” Crowley says, stepping through the hooded figures, who part like frightened fish before him. “You were hidden from me until the wards were broken. Luckily, once that veil was gone, your boyfriend shone like a beacon.”

“You have to save him,” Dean says, his voice cracking. “Please. He stopped the ritual.”

“And now you’re all going to die from several thousands pounds of stone falling on your heads. Where was the thinking there?”

He stretches out a hand, and there’s a strangled noise from the darkness below the altar. “Don’t even think of trying to run, Nybbas. I must say, yours was not a face I was expecting to see here. Let me guess, you and your little dead friend over there recruited a bunch of humans, convinced them to make deals for the things _you_ needed, giving you both tricky things like living Winchesters and your minions’ souls upon their doubtlessly imminent deaths?”

He twitches his fingers and the crossroads demon walks unwillingly back into Cas’ line of vision. “Please, sire,” Nybbas stammers. “I can explain—”

“Oh, I’m sure you can,” Crowley says, and he smiles. He waves his hand, and the demon disappears.

“Where did you send him?” Dean’s frowning at the empty space where Nybbas had stood.

“A nice dark little corner of Hell. He’ll make a lovely example of what happens to those who betray me.”

Sam takes a step towards Dean, and another tremor wracks the cavern. Cas gasps as the altar shifts underneath him and Dean pulls him off the stone, hoisting him up into his arms. A chunk of limestone falls from the ceiling, smashing into the floor, and Sam staggers backwards to avoid it.

“We have to get out of here.” Sam’s looking up, and Cas follows his gaze. The ceiling and walls are a mass of cracks. Another good tremor, and the whole roof will cave.

“I’ll see you later, assuming you make it out,” Crowley says, and vanishes.

Dean swears. “Come on!”

Cas knows he’s too heavy for Dean to carry out. “Put me down,” he says, and talking feels like someone’s digging around in the wound with a red-hot poker. “I can walk.” It’s a blatant lie, but he’s not going to slow them down.

Dean lowers him carefully until his feet are touching the ground, and Sam takes Cas’ other side, wrapping his arm around Cas’ shoulder.

Cas’ knees buckle on the first step, but between them Sam and Dean are strong enough to half-carry him. They’re only a few feet away from the altar when another tremor hits, bigger than the last. The ground beneath the altar opens, the stone tumbling down into the darkness, and the roof and walls shudder, raining down chunks of stone.

What’s left of the demon’s followers are already gone, running for the far end of the hall with their robes pulled up. Cas twists to look over his shoulder only to see the floor falling away behind them, the hole the altar had been lost to widening to consume the whole cavern. The ceiling is starting to come away in earnest, and they’re only halfway to the far end of the hall when Sam has to drag them all to one side to avoid a chunk the size of the Impala that lands where they’d been an instant before.

Cas doesn’t know how they reach the tunnel out of the cavern. He’s barely conscious for most of it. The pain is rolling in waves, his vision blacking out as it crests. All he can hear is a deafening roar as the cavern implodes. It doesn’t quiet as they reach the tunnel and start to climb towards the surface, and the air is heavy with dust. Cas starts to cough, lungs constricting, and when it passes, there’s the sharp taste of copper and bile in his mouth and blood on his chin. He must make a noise, because Dean holds him tighter.

“We’re almost out, Cas, just hold on.”

The cold air hits Cas like a slap. Somehow they’ve done it, they’ve reached the surface. Cas exhales, his breath rattling, and everything goes dark.

Except he can’t die, because Dean’s shouting in his ear.

“Come on, you bastard,” he’s saying, and Cas isn’t sure who he’s talking to. “You can’t just let him die, not after everything he’s done.”

“You mean him betraying you? Him opening Purgatory and almost destroying the world? I’m sure I could think of a few more choice things he’s done.” It’s Crowley, which doesn’t make sense. Crowley left them back in the cavern.

“That’s not who he is now. He’s just an ordinary guy who happened to save your sorry ass.”

“Come on, Crowley,” Sam says. “We’d be in your debt. I’m sure you’d like that.”

There’s a long pause, and Cas almost drifts off again.

It’s Crowley who breaks the silence. “Fine,” he says. “I did make a deal with your brother that we’d leave each other alone, but in a tight place having leverage over the Winchesters does sound pleasant. I suppose I can call in a favor. Don’t say I never did anything for you. Just remember, boys, you owe me.”

Cas’ whole body seizes and he gasps for breath. For a second, he thinks he’s going to burn alive from the pain and all he can see is glowing white. Then it’s gone, and all that’s left is a dull ache in his side.

“Cas? Cas? Are you okay?” Dean’s hands are running up his body, feeling where the wound had been, and Cas smiles.

“I thought we were supposed to limit the touching around Sam.”

“I’m not here,” Sam says faintly, and turns away, walking off to check something dark on the ground.

“Good,” Dean says, and bends down to kiss him. Cas reaches up, grabbing the back of Dean’s neck and pushing hard against Dean’s lips. They’re both breathless by the time they break apart.

Cas pulls himself upright and Dean helps him get to his feet. Cas’ breath freezes in the air as he looks around, and for the first time he realizes just how cold it is out here.

“What are—” he starts, glancing around the black piles scattered around them on the ground, then breaks off as he realizes what they are. He swallows hard and turns away from the twisted bodies of the demon’s human minions.

“Crowley took care of them before we got out here,” Dean says, his jaw set and tense. “I guess at least we won’t have to keep looking over our shoulder.”

“Dean, Cas, look at this!” Sam’s about fifty feet away, waving his arm at them.

“Can you walk?” Dean asks. He’s still got his hands on Cas’ shoulders.

“I’m perfectly healed.” Still, Cas doesn’t pull away from them as they walk over to join Sam.

For a second, Cas doesn’t recognize what he’s looking at. Beyond Sam, there’s nothing but darkness deep enough that the pale blue early morning light does nothing to illuminate it.

“Holy crap.”

There’s a wide canyon at their feet, deep enough that there’s no sign of a bottom. That cavern had probably been there for centuries, built and maintained by those who still followed Lucifer, maybe even built for the sole purpose of staging that ritual, and now it’s nothing more than rubble at the bottom of a hole. Cas smiles.

“We should probably get out of here,” Sam says. “Once the sun comes up, this isn’t going to be unnoticed for long.”

“Where does this look like to you, southern New Mexico?” Dean asks. “We left the car in Kansas. That’s a hell of a walk.”

“Then we’d better get started. The people working with the demons must have had some way of getting here. Maybe they left cars or something.”

Cas looks out at the barren countryside. In the distance, something catches the sunlight, a silver flash that could be a tin roof. “How about over there?”

Dean shrugs. “Looks as good as anything.”

“Where do we go after here?” Sam asks, falling into step with Dean and Cas. “I don’t know about you guys, but I still feel like crap.”

Cas would go anywhere. If there’s one thing he’s learned in the time he’s been alone, it’s that he’s lost without them. Even his tiny apartment could be a home if his family was there with him. Speaking of which…

“I’ve got a place,” he says, and they both look at him. “It’s not very big, but I’ve got rent paid on it until February.”

Dean nods his head, pursing his lips. “Sounds good to me.” They’re walking close enough together, that Dean can reach down and take Cas’ hand without Sam seeing. Cas thinks he notices anyway, but that’s okay.

Everything’s going to be okay.

* * *

_Epilogue…_

“So, is this the last of it?”

Cas’ apartment seems bigger with all the furniture gone. Dean has the last cardboard box balanced on his hip and Sam’s outside packing the Impala. The plan is to take it all up to Rufus’ cabin in Whitefish and decide where to go from there. At first, Cas had been tempted to stay in the apartment and keep his job at the store, but it really was too small for three grown men, and he’d been getting suspicious looks from his landlord for weeks. He’d given his thirty-day notice twenty-nine days ago.

“Almost.” Cas crosses over to the built-in closet and stands on tiptoe to reach the top shelf. There’s a plastic shopping bag in the back corner and he drags it down, pulling its contents. “I put this away after I Fell,” he says, shaking it out, and Dean’s eyes widen.

“Seriously? You kept the coat?”

“It reminded me of you,” Cas admits. “Of who I was when I met you, and I couldn’t bear to face that.” He shrugs. “But I couldn’t get rid of it either.”

He shrugs it on, and fits just like how he remembered it, a little too big but comfortable. Just for a second, he feels like the old Castiel.

“That coat always looked hot on you,” Dean says, and Cas raises his eyebrows.

“I’ll bear that in mind.” He crumples up the plastic bag and shoves it into his pocket. The keys are already in the lock. He shuts the door behind them, and there’s actually a pang of regret. He’d learned how to be human in this place. For that, if nothing else, he was in its debt.

Dean’s already halfway down the first flight of stairs, and Cas takes the steps two at a time to catch up with him. “Are you going to keep hunting?”

“I dunno. Probably. I think Sam’s going to take a break, though.”

“I want you to teach me how to be a hunter,” Cas says, and as soon as the words are out he knows it’s the right decision. He’s been thinking about the future a lot lately. With the Leviathans gone and the world relatively back to normal, he’d been able to block out what he’d done in the last few years of being an angel. Now that the Winchesters are back, though, it’s harder to forget. If he can be a hunter, then maybe he can start to make a difference, help heal the world that he almost broke beyond repair.

He and Sam have talked about options already, of maybe opening some kind of consulting business using Sam’s hunting knowledge and what’s left of what Cas knew as an angel, but Dean needs someone to watch his back.

“What, you and me, traveling the country, you having to listen to my crappy singing, eating even crappier food, and staying in motel rooms that are either freezing cold, way too hot, or have a weird smell? Being in danger every other fucking day and bored to hell on the others? Didn’t you already get enough of that?”

“Not nearly,” Cas says, catching Dean’s arm. Dean turns towards him eagerly, and the box clatters onto the steps as Dean fists his hands in Cas’ lapels. Dean’s lips are soft and warm, and they fit together with Cas’ perfectly.

Cas pulls away first. “Sam’s probably wondering if we got lost.”

“Let him wonder,” Dean says, and bends to pick up the box, angling himself so Cas has no choice but to admire his ass.

Cas knows it’s not going to be easy. In just the few months he and Dean have been trying out—whatever it is they have, it’s already been more difficult than he could have imagined. He’d thought he knew Dean, but every time he thinks he’s broken past one wall of denial and entrenched self-loathing, he finds another.

They reach the bottom of the stairs and Dean’s hand slips into Cas’. It’s not much of a gesture—they’re hardly making out in the streets—but it’s the most acknowledgement of their relationship that Dean’s ever done in public. Sam spots them and makes the requisite disgusted little brother noise, but as he turns back to making sure the boxes are stable in the back seat, he’s smiling.

Cas knows better than to think there’s going to be a happy ending at the end of all this.  They’d need a miracle for that. Just for a while, though, he can hope.  After all, miracles used to be his business. Maybe, just maybe, they can pull off one more.


End file.
